NEWS2U Health & WellnessLiving Healthy in an Unhealthy World

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 15:08:00 +0000

The World Population is Expected to Hit 11.2 Billion by 2100

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:39:00 +0000

Statistics says that by 2100, the human population will exceed 11.2 billion and will continue to rapidly increase. With this huge increase in numbers, it is important to educate and create awareness to prepare.

August 2, 2015
Author: Amanda Froelich
True Activist

Is the world really overpopulated, or are humans just utilizing resources at an unsustainable rate in irresponsible fashion? Debate persists, but what isknown is that by the year 2100, the population

of humans on planet Earth is expected to be at an all-time high of 11.2 billion.

Reported by Upriser, the number of people on Earth is expected to growfaster than previously expected, reaching 8.5 billion in just the next 15 years. According to United Nations projections released last Wednesday, the population growth will mainly be fueled by some of the poorest countries in Africa.

It’s difficult to tamper the ever-increasing population when low-income, poverty-stricken areas lack adequate birth control methods and complementary education. Because of this, Africa is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth through 2050, to 9.7 from 7.3 billion today.

Nigeria, presently the seventh-largest country by population, is expected to surpass the United States and become the world’s third largest by 2050. In this time, 28 African countries could more than double in size population-wise, and 10 – including Angola, Somalia, and Uganda – will more than quintuple. India is also expected to surpass China and become the most populous country by 2022.

It may be difficult sometimes to think beyond this year, or even the next five, but these projections certainly cause one to ponder their contribution and/or the necessity to produce offspring.

Said John Wilmoth, the director of the population division in the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs:

“The concentration of population growth in the poorest countries presents its own set of challenges, making it more difficult to eradicate poverty and inequality, to combat hunger and malnutrition and to expand educational enrollment and health systems.”

“This is not good news,” said John Bongaarts, a vice president of the Population Council, an international nongovernmental research organization based in New York. “In the poorest countries, fertility rate declines have slowed down and in some cases are even stalling.”

Furthermore, in poverty-stricken areas expected to experience a massive increase in population, it will not be unexpected for citizens to migrate to urban locations. This pattern could present problems of its own, as in affluent locations, diseases of Westernized living are becoming more and more prevalent, and may be difficult to curb because high-sugar, high-fat foods are cheaper and easier to attain for those on a budget.

“The growth in urban areas is going to be astonishing,” Bongaarts said. “Most of these people are going to end up in slums. That’s not good news.”

But don’t let this news get you down. There is some positive news to report. At present, the AIDS epidemic is coming under control, and infant mortality is declining. In addition, some African countries, such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, have successfully expanded access to contraceptives and family planning education. These contributions will go a long way in helping to educate people and provide options to consciously create and raise families.

As medical care continues to advance, life expectancy is also expected to increase in the poorest countries. The U.N. projects show that those living in poverty-stricken locations may experience an average of 10 years extension in life.

By the end of this century, however, there will be very small numbers of labor force participants to support the booming numbers of elderly, therefore it is essential as the population grows this inevitable concern be planned for.

The report says that future workers and parents need health care, education, and employment opportunities to “help build a brighter future for their countries.”

Education is definitely the first step, and raising awareness is the second.

Source:
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/08/02/the-world-population-is-expected-to-hit-11-2-billion-by-2100/
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INVESTIGATION

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 22:23:00 +0000

Three days before Dr. Bradstreet was found dead in a river, U.S. govt. agents raided his research facility to seize a breakthrough cancer treatment called GcMAF

Monday, July 27, 2015
by Mike Adams
Natural News

The history of the suppression of medical science in America is a long one, filled with true accounts of pioneering doctors and clinicians being threatened, intimidated and even assassinated in order to bury emerging cures and keep the "sick care" industry in control. (The American Medical Association, for example, has been found guilty by the U.S. federal courts of a conspiracy to destroy the chiropractic industry, by the way.)

Over the last few days, we've learned that before being found shot in the chest and floating in the river, pioneering medical researcher Dr. Bradstreet was working with a little-known molecule that occurs naturally in the human body. Called, "GcMAF", this molecule has the potential to be a universal cancer cure for many people. It has also been shown to reverse signs of autism in the vast majority of patients receiving the treatment.

While GcMAF is perfectly legal as a treatment in dozens of advanced nations around the world, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has outlawed it, calling it an "unapproved drug." It is with this designation -- an effort to suppress the forward progress of medical science -- that the U.S. government conducted a raid on Dr. Bradstreet's clinic, specifically seeking to confiscate GcMAF in order to shut down his research and halt his treatment of patients. Meanwhile, Big Pharma gets special permission to unleash untested, experimental drugs on the public as long as those drugs earn sufficient profits.

In this article, I summarize the videos, articles and documents covering GcMAF and the mysterious death of Dr. Bradstreet. An exhaustive investigation needs to be pursued on this matter, possibly involving private investigators. The timing and manner of Dr. Bradstreet's death seems highly suspicious, especially in light of the many other holistic doctors who have recently been found dead under mysterious circumstances. (Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez died just days ago...)

Read the whole story here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/050553_Dr_Bradstreet_GcMAF_cancer_therapy.html
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Academic Oligarchy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:48:00 +0000

Majority of science publishing is controlled by just six companies

Natural News
Sunday
July 19, 2015
by Ethan A. Huff

The flow of science in this modern age is largely controlled by just six corporate publishing groups, which by calculated design have been gobbling up the journal market since at least the 1970s. And a new study out of Canada reveals that this mass consolidation of publishing power is, to a large extent, skewing what passes as scientific progress.

Researchers from the University of Montreal pored through the whole of scientific literature published between 1973 and 2013 and found that the publishing realm has changed dramatically during this time. Many smaller publishers have been absorbed into larger ones, for instance, and academic research groups have become increasingly beholden to the interests of these major publishers, which tend to favor large industries like pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

Much of the independence that was once cherished within the scientific community, in other words, has gone by the wayside as these major publishers have taken control and now dictate what types of content get published. The result is a publishing oligopoly in which scientists are muzzled by and overarching trend toward politically correct, and industry-favoring, "science."

"Overall, the major publishers control more than half of the market of scientific papers both in the natural and medical sciences and in the social sciences and humanities," said Professor Vincent Lariviere, lead author of the study from the University of Montreal's School of Library and Information Science.

"Furthermore, these large commercial publishers have huge sales, with profit margins of nearly 40%. While it is true that publishers have historically played a vital role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge in the print era, it is questionable whether they are still necessary in today's digital era."

The following Natural News infographic illustrates the disturbing reach of this academic oligarchy:

Six major publishers control fields of chemistry, psychology and social sciences

The fields most controlled by this academic oligarchy include those dealing with chemistry, psychology, social sciences and the professional fields. On the flip side, biomedical research, physics, and the arts and humanities are influenced to a much lesser degree by these six corporate publishers, according to the study.

What this suggests is that, over time, certain disciplines have become more corrupted than others as they've been absorbed into the corporate publishing fold. Such content, though often skewed, is highly profitable for publishers which not only don't have to pay for the articles they publish but also resell such content digitally at profit margins upwards of 40%.

"As long as publishing in high impact factor journals is a requirement for researchers to obtain positions, research funding, and recognition from peers, the major commercial publishers will maintain their hold on the academic publishing system," added Lariviere.

Publishing in one of "Big Six" corporate journals doesn't add value, study finds

But does publishing in high-impact journals really make much of a difference in terms of article exposure and the quantity of citations? Not really, the researchers found. The reach is roughly the same, they found, except that smaller publishers are less likely to be actively promoting a special interest agenda, and are thus less likely censor science that doesn't correspond with the official narrative.

"One would expect that a major publisher acquiring a journal would have the effect of increasing the latter's visibility," said Lariviere. "However, our study shows that there is no clear increase in terms of citations after switching from a small to large publisher."

"Our findings question the real added value of big publishers. Ultimately, the question is whether the services provided to the scientific community by these publishers warrant the growing share of university budgets allocated to them."

Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/050457_science_publishing_academic_oligarchy_corporate_corruption.html http://www.nouvelles.umontreal.ca
http://journals.plos.org
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Gov. Caught Lying About Vaccine Dangers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:41:00 +0000

Nighlty News Director Rob Dew methodically covers the evidence that vaccines are dangerous and the fact the vaccine manufacturers are not liable for their toxic products and as a result you will never see credible impartial studies. Those who do look at vaccines are attacked and demonized by the media and big pharma. Rob also examines why autism saw an explosion in the late 1980's and concludes the report with a must read article from retired neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock and an amazing quote from one of the first anti-vaccers Ghandi. This report has a lot of amazing information, please check out the links below.

Sources:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/03/14/the-danger-of-excessive-vaccination-during-brain-development.aspx

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/09/22-medical-studies-that-show-vaccines.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

http://www.wddty.com/mmr-vaccine-isn-t-safe-after-all-uk-government-forced-to-concede.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/15/vaccines-behind-autism-epidemic.aspx

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statisticsreports.html#_ftnref1

http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=57102

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infant-vaccines-produce-autism-symptoms-in-new-primate-study-by-university-of-pittsburgh-scientists-57263092.html

http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2013/06/21/new-published-study-verifies-andrew-wakefields-research-on-autism-again-mmr-vaccine-causes-autism/

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822669

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gandhis-anti-vaccine-views-ring-true-century-laterA

http://www.naturalnews.com/048467_vaccine_industry_intelligent_questions_scientific_principles.html

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The 21 curious questions we're never allowed to ask about vaccines!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 21:12:00 +0000

February 01, 2015
Natural News
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) The surest sign of a medical dictatorship is an aggressively enforced blockade against intelligent questions. Intelligent questions, after all, can destroy a medical police state because they expose the fraud of it.

Intelligent questions -- which the vaccine industry characterizes as "dangerous" -- are the greatest threat to the vaccine delusions still being played out across the world today, which is precisely why such questions are not allowed to be asked. Those daring to ask such questions are now being threatened with mass arrest and imprisonment -- that's how vulnerable the fraudulent vaccine industry has now become. It can be brought down by mere words if only those words are allowed to be circulated.

What sort of questions are we not allowed to ask? Here are 21 censored questions the obedient, pharma-controlled mainstream media will never dare ask:

Question #1) If measles vaccines confer measles immunity, then why do already-vaccinated children have anything to fear from a measles outbreak?

Question #2) If vaccines work so well, then why did Merck virologists file a False Claims Act with the U.S. government, describing the astonishing scientific fraud of how Merck faked its vaccine results to trick the FDA?

Question #3) If vaccines don't have any links to autism, then why did a top CDC scientist openly confess to the CDC committing scientific fraud by selectively omitting clinical trial data after the fact in order to obscure an existing link between vaccines and autism?

His exact statement, published on the website of his legal counsel:

My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998. I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.

Question #4) If mercury is a neurotoxic chemical (which it is), then why is it still being injected into children and pregnant women via vaccines? Why does the vaccine industry refuse to remove all the mercury from vaccines in the interests of protecting children from mercury?

The U.S. government tells us that lead in water is BAD, but mercury in vaccines is GOOD!

Question #5) If vaccines are so incredibly safe, then why does the vaccine industry need absolute legal immunity from all harm caused by its products?

Question #6) If vaccines work so well to prevent disease, then why do some vaccines (like the chickenpox vaccine) openly admit that they can cause the spread of chickenpox?

Question #7) If vaccines are so great for public health, then why do these historical public health charts show nearly all the declines in infectious disease taking place BEFORE vaccines arrived on the scene?

Read more at GetHolisticHealth.com:
http://www.getholistichealth.com/39215/vacci...

And watch this must-see interview with Dr. Suzanne Humphries who reveals the truth about vaccines:

http://vaccineliberationarmy.com/2014/03/20/...

Question #8) If vaccines are perfectly safe, then why did at least 13 people recently die in Italy after being vaccinated?

Question #9) If vaccines are so trustworthy, then why did a pro-vaccine group in Africa recently discover -- to its shock and horror -- that vaccines being given to young African women were secretly laced with abortion chemicals?

Question #10) If vaccines are backed by solid science, then why do some vaccine inserts openly admit they are backed by no clinical trials?

...there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with FLULAVAL.

Question #11) If vaccines are so safe, then why does this vaccine insert admit that the Gardasil vaccine causes "acute respiratory illness" in babies who consume the breast milk of mothers who have been vaccinated?

Question #12) If vaccines are so safe, then why does this Gardasil insert sheet admit that the vaccine causes "seizure-like activity, headache, fever, nausea and dizziness" and can even cause those injected with the vaccine to lose consciousness and fall, resulting in injury?

Question #13) If vaccines are totally safe, then why do vaccine insert sheets disclose a long list of frightening and bizarre side effects associated with their vaccines?

Just some of the adverse effects experienced after flu shot vaccines include:

• Eye pain and chest pain
• Arthritis
• Dizziness, tremors and losing consciousness (syncope)
• Convulsions and seizures
• Guillian-Barre Syndrome
• Cranial nerve paralysis or limb paralysis
• Swelling of the brain
• Partial facial paralysis
... and much more. See the text yourself:

Question #14) If vaccines are backed by so much "science" then why do they frequently admit there really aren't any studies of the vaccine for the very groups of people who are often injected with it?

Question #15) If vaccines are so safe to give to pregnant women, then why do the vaccine insert sheets openly admit most of them have never been tested for safety in pregnant women? In fact, this vaccine admits "the effects of the vaccine in fetal development are unknown."

Question #16) If vaccines are so safe to be injected into the bodies of children and pregnant women, then why do their own insert sheets readily admit they are manufactured with a cocktail of toxic chemical ingredients including "fetal bovine serum?" (The blood serum of aborted baby cows.)

Question #17) If vaccines achieve absolute immunity, then why are as many as 97 percent of children struck by infectious disease already vaccinated against that disease?

Question #18) If vaccines are totally safe and effective, then why did this five-year-old girl recently die from the very strain of flu she was just vaccinated against?

Question #19) If the mainstream media claims to report honest, unbiased information about vaccines, then why was there a total nationwide blackout on the news of the CDC whistleblower admitting vaccines are linked to autism?

This was one of the most censored medical news stories of 2014, and the CDC's criminal cover-up stretches back more than 12 years...

Question #20) Why does the CDC falsely claim all vaccines are completely safe and effective when its own website still lists the toxic chemical ingredients used in vaccines?

The CDC openly admits that mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, aluminum, antibiotics and other chemicals are still used in vaccines. Here's a screen shot from the CDC website's vaccine additives page that confirms this:

Click here to read a more complete list of toxic vaccine ingredients and heavy metals still used in vaccines given to children today.

Question #21) If the vaccine industry cares so much about children, then why does it call for the arrest of parents and the breaking up of families of unvaccinated children, begging for the state to seize custody of those children at gunpoint while incarcerating the parents in prison?
Source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/048467_vaccine_industry_intelligent_questions_scientific_principles.html
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ADA, an industrial chemical called azodicarbonamide, an industrial plastics chemical shows up in many commercial baked goods as a “dough conditioner” that renders large batches of dough easier to handle and makes the finished products puffier and tough enough to withstand shipping and storage.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 14:21:00 +0000

Nearly 500 ways to make a yoga mat sandwich

By David Andrews, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, and Elaine Shannon, Editor-in-chief and publisher Environmental Working Group
February 27, 2014

If you’ve planked on a yoga mat, slipped on flip-flops, extracted a cell phone from protective padding or lined an attic with foam insulation, chances are you’ve had a brush with an industrial chemical called azodicarbonamide, nicknamed ADA. In the plastics industry, ADA is the “chemical foaming agent” of choice. It is mixed into polymer plastic gel to generate tiny gas bubbles, something like champagne for plastics. The results are materials that are strong, light, spongy and malleable.

As few Americans realized until Vani Hari, creator of FoodBabe.com, spotlighted it earlier this month, you’ve probably eaten ADA. This industrial plastics chemical shows up in many commercial baked goods as a “dough conditioner” that renders large batches of dough easier to handle and makes the finished products puffier and tough enough to withstand shipping and storage. According to the new EWG Food Database of ingredients in 80,000 foods, now under development, ADA turns up in nearly 500 items and in more than 130 brands of bread, bread stuffing and snacks, including many advertised as “healthy.”

EWG researchers who are constructing the database found that ADA is listed as an ingredient on the labels of many well-known brands of bread, croutons, pre-made sandwiches and snacks, including Ball Park, Butternut, Country Hearth, Fleischman’s, Food Club, Harvest Pride, Healthy Life, Jimmy Dean, Joseph Campione, Kroger, Little Debbie, Mariano’s, Marie Callendar’s, Martin’s, Mother’s, Nature’s Own, Pillsbury, Roman Meal, Sara Lee, Schmidt, Shoprite, Safeway, Smucker’s, Sunbeam, Turano, Tyson, Village Hearth and Wonder.

This synthetic additive has been largely overlooked because it is not known to be toxic to people in the concentration approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration – 45 parts per million. According to the World Health Organization, workers handling large volumes have reported respiratory symptoms and skin sensitization, but ADA has not undergone extensive testing of its potential to harm human health.

One thing is clear: ADA is not food, as food has been defined for most of human history. It is an industrial chemical added to bread for the convenience of industrial bakers. In centuries past, flour fresh from the mill had to age several months before it could be kneaded into dough and popped into the oven. But in 1956, a New Jersey chemical, pharmaceuticals and engineering firm called Wallace & Tiernan, best known for inventing a mass water chlorination process, discovered that ADA caused flour to “achiev[e] maturing action without long storage.” The result, the firm’s patent application stated, was commercial bread that was “light, soft and suitably moist, yet suitably firm or resilient, and that [had] crusts and internal properties of a pleasing and palatable nature.” The FDA approved ADA as a food additive in 1962. It is not approved for use in either Australia or the European Union.

In the early 1990s, ADA became the preferred dough conditioner of many American commercial bakers as a result ofCalifornia’s Proposition 65, which went into effect in 1987. This law required California authorities to list certain chemicals in food as “possibly dangerous to human health.” Potassium bromate, then a common dough conditioner, was found to be carcinogenic in test animals and made the Prop 65 list in 1991. ADA was widely adopted as a safer substitute.

Over the years, health activists concerned about synthetic chemicals in food have attacked the widespread use of ADA, but it did not attract nationwide headlines until Hari of Food Babe circulated a petition demanding that Subway, among the nation’s biggest fast-food outlets, stop using the chemical in its loaves. Subway responded that ADA was safe, but even so, it had quietly been seeking a substitute over the past year. The company pointed out that ADA is “found in the breads of most chains such as Starbuck’s, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Arby’s, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts.” Those other fast food giants joined Subway on the defensive.

EWG's Food Database, which is now being tested but is still under development, shows that ADA is widespread in supermarket items as well as fast food. The EWG project is being built on data gathered by FoodEssentials, a company that compiles details about the ingredients in foods sold in American supermarkets. To this data, EWG is adding layers drawn from its research on hazard concerns such as pesticide residues, food additives, and contaminants such as mercury. EWG’s Food Database will be the first of its kind – looking deeply at the nutritional value of foods sold in supermarkets as well as their potential health hazards and degree of processing. The full interactive version is scheduled to be made available to the public in the fall.

The database has two purposes: to empower consumers with the information they need to make healthier shopping choices and to put pressure on food manufacturers to clean up the nation's food supply. It draws on EWG’s expertise and experience gained in developing online databases that have dramatically affected policy debates and consumer awareness on topics including farm subsidies, tap water contaminants, pesticides in produce, hazardous ingredients in personal care products and home cleaners, and the damage done to public land by oil, gas and uranium extraction.

The information detailed in this report on ADA, gathered from FoodEssentials on Feb. 11, represents a snapshot of food market on that date. EWG recognizes that the marketplace is constantly changing as food processors reformulate, discontinue and introduce products. The list of products in this report represents an extensive look at the ingredients in food recently available in stores, but it may not be comprehensive. Shoppers must read product labels to know for certain whether ADA and other chemical additives are in items they’re contemplating buying.

The consumers’ search for healthier food may get easier as the “clean label” trend in food manufacturing gains momentum. Last month, the trade journal Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery reported that commercial bakers and snack food manufacturers are seeking new, better ingredients “mostly due to consumer demand for better-for-you products with clean labels and no genetically modified organisms (GM0s).”

“Clean label,” like “natural,” has no precise legal definition. Food manufacturers often use the term to mean wholesome, without synthetic and unpronounceable ingredients – notably azodicarbonamide.

EWG recommends that consumers take steps to avoid the industrial additive ADA in their food. It is an unnecessary ingredient, its use has raised concerns about occupational exposure, and questions remain about its potential risk to consumers.

EWG also calls on all manufacturers to immediately end its use in food.

Source:
http://www.ewg.org/research/nearly-500-ways-make-yoga-mat-sandwich#brandtable
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Nearly 500 foods containing azodicarbonamide

Brand Name*	Product
Aladdin Bakers	Jumbo Bagels Cinnamon Raisin
America's Choice	Muffin Sandwiches Turkey, Sausage, Egg & Cheese
Amigos	Tortillas
Archer Farms	Simply Balanced 100% Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns
Arnold	Bakery Light 100% Whole Wheat Bread Sandwich Rolls, Wheat
Artichoke Basilles Pizza Co.	Margherita Pizza
Artisan Fresh	Jumbo Wheat Hoagie
Aunt Hattie's	Onion Buns Potato Hamburger Enriched Buns
Aunt Millie's	Honey & Hamburger Buns Whole Grain Bread
Bagel-Fuls	Bagel Filled With Cream Cheese, Original
Baker's Treat	Big Texas Cheese Roll Pastries
Ball Park	Flame Grilled Barbeque Chicken Slider Flame Grilled Beef Sliders Flame Grilled Cheese Burger Silders Hot Dog Buns
Bell's	Traditional Stuffing
Betty Crocker	Pasta Caesar Salad Suddenly Pasta Salad, Caesar
Big Az	Cheeseburger
Bimbo	Bread Crumbs Double Fiber Bread Large Wheat Bread Sabor Chocolate Toasted Bread Toasted Bread, Original
Bon Appetit	Apple Danish Blueberry Cream Pastry Cheese & Berries Danish Cheese Croissant Super Cinnamon Roll
Bridgford	Cinnamon Pull-Apart Monkey Bread Ready-Dough Frozen White Bread Dough
Brownberry	Chicago Hot Dog Rolls Kaiser Sandwich Buns Sandwich Buns, Onion Sausage Rolls, Original
Bunny	Hot Dog Buns
Butternut	1/2 Loaf White Enriced Bread All Whole Grain 100% Whole Wheat Bread Brown' N Serve Enriched Rolls Deluxe Buns Enriched Burger Buns, Sliced Enriched Hot Dog Buns, Sliced Hearty Rye Bread Honey Wheat Bread Italian Bread Large Enriched Bread Sliced Buns, Seeded Whole Grain White Bread Whole Wheat Bread
Castillo	Castillo Croissants
Centrella	Hot Dog Buns, Enriched Restaurant Style Caesar Crotons
Chef M.J. Brando	Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Swiss
Clear Value	White Bread
Cloverhill	Apple Danish
Cole's	Cheesesticks Garlic Mini Loaf
Connella	Bread Crumbs
Corfu Foods Inc.	Hand Made Pita
Country Hearth	Dakota Style 12 Grain Bread Hearty Homestyle 100% Whole Wheat Bread Hearty Homestyle Honey Grain 'n Oat Bread Split Top Wheat Bread Split Top White Bread
D'italiano	Italian Bread
Day'n Night Bites	Country Sausge Muffin With Egg'n Cheese
Drake's	Danish Pastries Cheese
Earthgrains	Honey Wheat Berry Bread Sliced French Premium Bread Wheat Rolls
Entenmann's	Raspberry Danish
Essential Everyday	5 Cheese Texas Toast Garlic Bread Garlic Bread Sticks Garlic Texas Toast
European Bakers	Onion Rolls White Sub Rolls
Farm Rich	French Toast Sticks, Cinnamon Sprinkle French Toast Sticks, Original
Fiber One	Hamburger Buns Hot Dog Buns
Fleischmann's	Simply Homemade Baking Mix, Pretzel Creations Simply Homemade No Knead Bread Mix, Country White Simply Homemade No Knead Bread Mix, Italian Herb Simply Homemade No Knead Bread Mix, Multi-Grain
Food Club	Caesar Restaurant Style Croutons Garlic Cheesesticks Garlic Dinner Rolls Seasoned Restaurant Style Croutons Strawberry Strudel Stuffing Classics Cornbread Stuffing Mix Texas Toast, 3 Cheese Texas Toast, Garlic French Toast Sticks Garlic Bread Sticks Texas Toast, 3 Cheese
Freihofer's	White Bread
Fresh Gourmet	Premium Croutons, Butter & Garlic Premium Croutons, Cheese & Garlic Premium Croutons, Classic Caesar Premium Croutons, Garden Herb Premium Croutons, Italian Seasoned Premium Croutons, Parmesan Ranch
Furlani	Garlic Bread Multi Grain Garlic Toast Parmesan Garlic Toast Texas Toast, Garlic Texas Toast, Pizza Texas Toast, Three Cheese
Gateway	Soft Rye Bread
Gimbo	Conchas Fine Pastry
Gollo	Galletas De Huevo (Eggs Crackers)
Gonnella	Sandwich Rolls
Great Value	Honey Buns Hot Dog Buns Wheat Sandwhich Bread
Grissom's	Hot Dog Sliced Enriched Buns
Harvest Pride	Awesome Rolls Seeded Italian Bread Texas Toast Bread Wheat Bread White Enriched Bread
Hauswald's	Enriched Bread Split Top Wheat Bread
Healthy Life	100% Whole Grain Wheat Bread, Flaxseed 100% Whole Grain Wheat Bread, Sugar Free 100% Whole Wheat English Muffins 100% Whole Wheat Whole Grain Bread High Fiber White Bread Hot Dog Buns, Whole Grain Italian Bread Light English Muffins Light Multigrain English Muffins Soft Style 100% Whole Grain Bread
Hearth Of Texas Bread Company	100% Whole Wheat Bread Enriched Large White Bread Extra Thin White Bread Split Top Wheat Bread Whole Grain White Bread
Honey	Hot Dog Buns
Hormel	Country Crock Homestyle Stuffing
Hungry-Man	Roasted Carved White Meat Turkey
Ihop	French Toast Breakfast Sandwich, Egg, Canadian Bacon & Cheese French Toast Breakfast Sandwich, Maple Sausage, Egg & Cheese
J. Skinner	Cinnamon Craver's Roll
J.C. Potter	Sausage On A Bun
J.J. Cassone	100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls Enriched Vienna Rolls Italian Bread Sliced Hero Rolls Sliced Sandwich Rolls Wheat Bran Sandwich Rolls
Jimmy Dean	Delights Honey Wheat Flatbread, Bacon, Egg & Cheese Delights Honey Wheat Flatbread, Turkey Sausage, Egg & Cheese French Toast Griddlers Muffin, Sausage, Egg & Cheese Sausage, Egg & Cheese On A Muffin Turkey Sausages Egg White & Cheese Whole Grain Bagel
Joseph Campione	Authentic Hearth Baked Garlic Bread Bread Sticks, Garlic Cheese Stuffed Bread Sticks Dinner Rolls, Parmesan Garlic Garlic Bread, Authentic Hearth Baked Garlic Mini Loaf Texas Toast, 5 Cheese Texas Toast, Garlic Texas Toast, Parmesan
Key Food	Seeded Rye European Hearth Bread, Deli Style Seedless Rye European Hearth Bread, Deli Style
Kid Cuisine	Kc's Campfire Hot Dog
Kroger	White Enriched Bread White Hamburger Enriched Buns
L'oven Fresh	Split Top Wheat Bread
Lakeland	Hot Dog Buns Enriched White Enriched Sandwich Bread
Lewis	Healthy Life Wheat Hot Dog Buns Whole Wheat Sandwich Buns
Liberty Hearth	New York Deli Kaiser Rolls, Poppy
Little Debbie	Cheese Danish Classic Pastry Cinnamon Rolls With Icing Cream Cheese Danish Pastry Danish Pastry, Cherry Cheese Honey Buns
Maglio	Stromboli, Philly Style Steak & Cheese
Manischewitz	Pumpernickel Bread
Mariano's	100% Whole Wheat Bread Asiago Cheese Focaccia Bell Pepper Focaccia Muffins Breadstics Butterflake Rolls Cheese Pizza Bread Chefs Collection Italian Focaccia Half Cinnamon Raisin Bread Club Rolls Egg And Onion Brat Bun Egg Dinner Rolls English Muffin Bread Fresh Tomato Focaccia Garlic Bread Ham Swiss Sub Hamburger Buns Hard Rolls Hot Dog Buns Italian Bread Italian Specialty Bread By The Pound Jalapeno Cheddar Focaccia Jalapeno Cheddar Focaccia Muffins Kaiser Rolls Large Kaiser Rolls Marble Rye Bread Olive And Parmesan Chop Block Bread Onion Rye Specialty Bread Paisano Italiano Sandwich Parisian Chocolate Croissant Roast Beef & Cheddar Croissant Rotisserie Chicken Salad Croissant Rye Specialty Bread By The Pound Salami And Provolone Chop Block Bread Tomato Basil Chop Block Bread Walnut Raisin Specialty Bread Wheat Bread Wheat Club Rolls Wheat Dinner Rolls Wheat Hamburger Buns Wheat Hot Dog Buns White Bread Whole Wheat Specialty Bread
Marie Callender's	Flaky Croissant With Ham & Swiss Flaky Croissant With Sausage, Egg & Monterey Jack Spaghetti With Meat Sauce
Market Street	Butterflake Rolls
Martin's	Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Potato Bread Hoagie Rolls, Unseeded Long Roll, Potato Rolls Potato Bread, 100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread, Sandwich Potato Rolls Potatobred Soft Cubed Stuffing
Marty's	Large Rolls
Master	Hamburger Enriched Buns Hot Dog Enriched Buns
Mckee	Cheese Danish With Icing Cinnamon Rolls
Mediterranean Pita	Bread
Met Foodmarkets	Giant White Enriched Bread Hamburgers Enriched Buns Hot Dogs Enriched Buns
Mother's	Giant Enriched White Bread Split Top Wheat Bread
Mrs Baird's	Pastry Kitchen Cinnamon Rolls Cinnamon Rolls, Cherry Cinnamon Rolls, Original
Mrs. Cubbison's	Butter & Garlic Croutons Corn Bread Stuffing, Seasoned Seasoned Croutons
Mrs. Freshley's	Honey Buns
Murry's	French Toast Bites, Cinnamon Blase
Nature's Own	100% Whole Grain 100% Whole Wheat Bread 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls 100% Whole Wheat Thin Sliced Bagels Butterbread Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread Double Fiber Wheat Bread Honey Wheat Bread Hot Dog Rolls Sandwich Rounds, Multi-Grain Thin Sliced Bagels, Plain White Wheat Bread Whole Grain Bread
New York	Bread Sticks With Real Garlic Hand-Tied Garlic Knots With Real Garlic Texas Toast, 5 Cheese Texas Toast, Garlic
New York Deli	Kaiser Rolls, Plain Kaiser Rolls, Sesame
Old Style	Cottage Potato Bread
One Republic	Skinny Buns
Oroweat	Raisin Cinnamon Bread
Palagonia	100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls French Bread Italian Bread Mini Heros Panino Italiano Rolls Sliced Italina Bread
Patriotic	Honey Buns
Pelmen	Blueberry Perogies Peroguis Aux Bleuets Mushrooms Champigons Perogies, Cherry Perogies, Potato With Cheddar Cheese Perogies, Potato With Cottage Cheese Perogies, Potato With Spinach & Feta Perogies, Sauerkraut Perogies, Sauerkraut Mushrooms Perogies, Sweet Cottage Cheese
Pillsbury	Artisan Dinner Rolls Artisan Pizza Crust With Whole Grain Breadsticks, Original Crusty French Loaf Italian Bread Pizza Crust, Thin Crust Toaster Scrambles, Cheese Sauce, Egg & Bacon Toaster Scrambles, Cheese Sauce, Egg & Sausage Toaster Strudel Pastries, Apple Toaster Strudel Pastries, Apple Cream Danish Toaster Strudel Pastries, Blueberry Toaster Strudel Pastries, Boston Cream Pie Toaster Strudel Pastries, Cinnamon With Brown Sugar Toaster Strudel Pastries, Cream Cheese & Strawberry Toaster Strudel Pastries, Danish Style Cream Cheese Toaster Strudel Pastries, Strawberry
Potmann's Select	Seasoned Croutons
Rainbo	Thin Sliced White Bread
Raybern's New York Deli Style	Raybern's New York Deli Style Philly Cheesesteak Roast Beef Cheddar Melt
Rhodes	Cinnamon Rolls, Cream Cheese Frosting
Roman Meal	100% Whole Wheat Bread
Rosa Bianca	Garlic Bread
Rosen's	Sweet Hawaiian Rolls
Roundy's	100% Whole Wheat Bread Blueberry Bagels Bratwurst Enriched Buns, Sliced Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bagel Croissant Sandwiches Croutons, Cheese & Garlic Croutons, Seasoned Deli Rye Bread, Seedless Enriched Hot Dog Buns Everything Bagels French Bread Garlic Bread, Original Garlic Bread, Parmesan Hamburger Enriched Buns Italian Sausage Tortelloni Meat & Fine Herbs Ravioli Muffin Sandwiches, Ham Egg And Cheese Muffin Sandwiches, Sausage, Egg & Cheese Plain Bagels Presliced Everything Bagels Quarter Pound Chicken Sandwich Select 9 Grain Bread Texas Toast, Garlic Texas Toast, Three Cheese Wheat Bread, Split Top Wheat Muffin Sandwiches, Turkey Sausage, Egg White & Cheese White Enriched Bread White Enriched Sandwich Bread
S.Rosen's	Black Bavarian Rye Bread Bohemian Style Rye Bread Brat & Sausage Rolls Enriched Hot Dog Buns French Rolls, Italian Beef Rolls Hawaiian Bread, Pineapple Kaiser Buns Marble Rye Swirled Multi Grain Bread Rye Bread Rye Bread, Caraway Seeds Rye Bread, Unseeded Wheat With Oat Bran Buns
Safeway	Cornbread Stuffing Mix Five Cheese Garlic Toast
Sara Lee	Blueberry Crumble Breakfast Bread Brown Sugar Cinnamon Breakfast Bread Center Split Deli Rolls, White Cinnamon Breakfast Bread With Raisins Cinnamon Raisin Bagels Cinnamon Rolls Classic Dinner Rolls Deluxe Bagels, Blueberry Deluxe Bagels, Cinnamon Raisin Deluxe Bagels, Plain Hearty & Delicious 100% Whole Wheat Deli Rolls Hearty & Delicious Center Split Deli Rolls, White Honey Wheat Bread Soft & Smooth 100% Whole Wheat Bread Soft & Smooth 100% Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns Soft & Smooth Hamburger Buns, White Soft & Smooth Hot Dog Buns, White Soft & Smooth Wheat Hamburger Buns White Bread
Schmidt	Enriched Bread Enriched Hamburger Rolls, Sliced Rye Bread Wheat Rolls Whole Grain White Bread
Select Signatures	Spicy Chicken Sliders
Shoprite	Bangles Whole Wheat Cinnamon Bread Country White Bread Enriched Cinnamon Swirl Bread Enriched Honey Wheat Bread Enriched Light Hot Dog Rolls Enriched Light Wheat Bread Enriched Round Top White Bread Garlic Bread Sticks Garlic Dinner Rolls Hot Dog Rolls Italian Bread Onion Bagels Poppy Bagels Potato Hamburger Rolls Premium Bread Premium Bread With 100% Stone Ground Wheat Sandwich White Bread Sesame Bagels Sliced Hearth Baked Plain Bagels Split Top White Bread Swirl Rye Bread Texas Toast Garlic Wheat Bread
Simplyaddwater	Premium Challah Bread Mix
Smucker's	Uncrustables Peanut Butter & Grape Jelly Sandwich Uncrustables Peanut Butter & Grape Spread Sandwich, Reduced Sugar Uncrustables Peanut Butter & Rasperry Spread Sandwich Uncrustables Peanut Butter & Strawberry Jam Sandwich Uncrustables Peanut Butter & Strawberry Spread Sandwich, Reduced Sugar
Snacks	Iced Honey Buns
Storehmann	Split Top Wheat Bread White Bread
Sun-Maid	Raisin Bread, Cinnamon Swirl
Sunbeam	Enriched Buns Grill'n Griddle Bread Hot Dog Buns Large, Enriched Bread Texas Toast Enriched Bread, Thick Sliced
Super Bread	Giant White Enriched Bread Hamburger Enriched Buns Honey Wheat Bread Hot Dog Enriched Buns Raisin Bread
Tastykake	Glazed Honey Buns Honey Bun Iced Honey Buns
The Bakery At Walmart	Glazed Yeast Donuts Jumbo Croissant
Toufayan Bakeries	Bagels Blueberry Cinnamon Raisin Everything Bagels Mini Bagels, Cinnamon Raisin Mini Bagels, Plain Pre-Sliced Bagels, Whole Wheat Pre-Sliced Mini Bagels, Whole Wheat
Turano	Brat & Sausage Rolls Extra Long French Bread French Rolls Gourmet Sandwich Rolls Italian Bread Kaiser Rolls Old Fashioned Italian Bread Soft Sub Rolls Wheat French Rolls Wheat Rolls
Tuscan Garden	Caesar Gourmet Restaurant Style Croutons
Tyson	Mini Chicken Sandwiches Mini Chicken Sandwiches With Cheddar Cheese Mini Grilled Chicken Sandwiches
Unger's	Puff Pastry Shells
Vachon	Carrot Cakes
Valu Time	Wheat Bread White Enriched Bread
Van De Kamp's	Enriched Hot Dog Buns Sliced
Village Hearth	100% Whole Wheat Bread Cottage Bread, Wheat Honey Wheat Bread Light 12 Grain Bread Light Italian Bread Light Wheat Bread White Brat Buns
Weight Watchers Smart Ones	English Muffin Sandwich, Canadian Style Bacon English Muffin Sandwich, Egg Whites & Cheese Homestyle Turkey Breast With Stuffing
White Castle	Cheeseburgers Microwavable Hamburgers
White Rose	Stuffing Mix
Wonder	Light Wheat Bread Potato Hot Dog Buns Texas Toast Bread

Source: Data provided by FoodEssentials as of 2/27/2014.

* Disclaimer. The conclusions and findings that appear on this page reflect EWG's research at the time of publication stated above. In light of evolving market conditions, subsequent product reformulations, and other factors, they may no longer be current. EWG makes no representations or warranties about any of the products that may appear on this page. EWG hereby disclaims all warranties with regard to any of the products that may appear on this page, including express, statutory, implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular use.

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You may think all the talk of eating local and shopping at farmer’s markets is making a shift in the grocery buying arena, but if you do, you may want to take a step back and look at the big picture.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 17:05:00 +0000

America Isn’t Buying Its Food at Farmer’s Markets, It’s Doing it at Walmart

By Anna Brones
Nation of Change
Feb 22, 2014

While your friends, family and local community may be making a bigger effort to shop at smaller scale markets or specialty stores, the reality is most people aren’t getting their groceries at the same place.

In fact, they’re not even going to grocery stores. They’re going to Walmart, Target and beyond.

A new study shows that it’s not the places selling organic quinoa and Swiss chard that are getting the grocery business, it’s big box stores, convenience stores and even pharmacies. King Retail Solutions partnered up with University of Arizona’s Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing and surveyed 1,200 shoppers, from millennials to baby boomers, and found 70% of them bought groceries from non-grocers in 2013.

Target and Walmart topped the list, but then came Walgreens and CVS. Farmer’s markets and food stalls came in seventh place, with a very small percentage in comparison to the big names at the top of the list.

Think about these types of stores and the first thing that comes to mind isn’t normally fresh produce; these are places that are known for processed and packaged foods. Certainly, places like Walmart do sell produce—in fact, it has committed to doubling its sale of locally grown produce by 2015—but its popularity only adds to the industrialization of our food system.

Some may argue that because of prices, these types of stores attract people with a smaller food budget. Not so. As it turns out, “the wealthier the shopper, the more likely he or she is to procure groceries from Target, Walmart or another of these non-grocers,” according to Forbes.

What are the effects of such shopping behaviors?

For one, it affects farmers. As Grist reported in 2011, ”Between 1990 and 2009, the farmers’ share of each dollar consumers spent on pork fell from 45 to 25 cents, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. Pork processors picked up some of the difference, but the bulk of the gains went to Walmart and other supermarket chains, which are now pocketing 61 cents of each pork dollar, up from 45 cents in 1990.”

Then there’s the question of health. While these stores may offer produce options, they are also right next to all of the processed, package options that we as a society need to avoid. It’s hard to avoid temptation, and temptation gets us eating food products instead of real food.

Are grocery stores and markets doomed? Maybe. Once again, it comes down to voting with our forks.

This article was published at NationofChange at:

http://www.nationofchange.org/america-isn-t-buying-its-food-farmer-s-markets-it-s-doing-it-walmart-1393081150.

All rights are reserved.

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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:32:00 +0000

FEBRUARY 11TH 2014 IS

The Day We Fight Back

AGAINST MASS SURVEILLANCE

The obvious important point made by this report is that compounds are being used in agriculture about which federally contracted scientists, usually a conservative bunch, have raised repeated concerns

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 01:19:00 +0000

FDA Documents Show Decade of Unsuccessful Attempts to Control Farm Antibiotics

By Maryn McKenna
Wired
Jan 28, 201

A nonprofit group that has been using the courts to pressure the Food and Drug Administration into exerting more control over farm antibiotic overuse has done a deep review of FDA documents prised loose through Freedom of Information Act requests — and concludes that by allowing the drugs to remain on the market as formulated, the agency isn’t meeting its own internal safety standards.

Instead of only making that assertion, the Natural Resources Defense Council took the unusual step of showing its evidence in detail. NRDC published its analysis, Playing Chicken with Antibiotics, alongside a selection of the raw documents it received from the FDA. You’ll have to be a document-obsessive to take it on: The file (cached in a Dropbox and requiring download to view) is 306 mb and 971 pages. But even without considering its content, the file’s heft makes clear how much discussion there has been at the FDA over this issue, and suggests how much evidence has been accumulating over the problem of antibiotic resistance emerging from livestock production. Also telling: The FDA has been attempting to put some controls on livestock production since 1977; these documents cover only reviews of antibiotic feed additives that were conducted between 2001 and 2010.

NRDC’s conclusion, in its report:

FDA’s scientific reviewers’ findings show that none of these products would likely be approvable as new additives for nontherapeutic livestock use if submitted today, under current FDA guidelines. Eighteen of the 30 reviewed feed additives were deemed to pose a “high risk” of exposing humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food supply, based on the information available. The remainder lacked adequate data for the reviewers to make any determination and their safety remains unproven. In addition, FDA concluded in their review that at least 26 of the reviewed feed additives do not satisfy even the safety standards set by FDA in 1973.

The documents that NRDC obtained were generated within the FDA from a program that was created in 2001 and discontinued in 2010. It evaluated feed additives (the main route of routine administration for antibiotic doses used for weight gain or protection from farm conditions), already on the market, against two existing standards: safety standards set in 1973, and guidelines for evaluating new animal drugs that were published in 2003.

NRDC’s findings, first on the 1973 standards:

Of the 30 reviewed antibiotic feed additives, 26 have never met the safety criteria established by FDA in 1973… Three other antibiotic additives were found not to have met the 1973 safety requirements (and thus were not proven to be safe), although the requirements may not have applied. Of the 30 reviewed feed additives, only one was found by FDA (in 1986) to meet the 1973 safety standards; however it was found to have failed the agency’s standard for efficacy.

And on the 2003 standards:

When these previously approved antibiotic feed additives were evaluated against the FDA’s 2003 antimicrobial safety guidelines (Guidance #152) for the evaluation of a new animal drug, the agency found that 18 of the 30 antibiotic feed additives posed a high risk of exposing humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food chain… For the remaining 12 additives, the drug manufacturers had not provided sufficient evidence for FDA to even determine the level of risk for human health posed by the additives, let alone to determine that the additives are safe as used. Thus, none of the 30 reviewed feed additives could likely be approved in their current forms today.

Within the report, NRDC pieces together document trails for the feed additives, tracing the back-and-forth in which FDA’s reviewers asked for additional data from manufacturers and did not receive it. Here’s one (“sponsor” refers to the manufacturer; in the report, each sentence is footnoted to a separate document):

In 1997, the FDA asked the sponsor to voluntarily withdraw (the formulation Penicillin G Procaine 50/100) due to increased concern from public officials and members of the health care community regarding the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. In the same letter, the FDA stated that the product failed to meet antimicrobial-resistance safety criteria. In its review, FDA noted increased microbial resistance was observed when the antibiotic feed additive was administered in feed to animals. The sponsor apparently disputed this finding, yet the FDA documents do not contain any other studies to address the safety issue. FDA sent another letter to the sponsor in 2004 laying out its concerns about resistance. The record does not show that the sponsor submitted any new studies. FDA never required the sponsor to take the antibiotic feed additive off the market, and it is still sold as a growth promoter in feed.

But what is also important — and you could view this as reassuring, or scandalous, or both at the same time — is precisely that those concerns were raised over years. It’s been clear that some of the inaction over misuse of farm antibiotics has been due to Congressional interference with the FDA’s mission (see the timeline in this post for details). These documents establish the degree to which drug manufacturers were resisting the FDA as well.

Source:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/nrdc-report-fda/#more-517531
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Most tap water is far from pure, containing a vast array of disinfection byproducts, chemicals, radiation, heavy metals, and even pharmaceutical drugs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 19:21:00 +0000

Chemicals in Your Drinking Water That Could Be Wrecking Your Health

By Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
December 28, 2013

Every day, you lose water from your body through urine and sweat, and this fluid needs to be replenished. Clean, pure water is therefore one of the most important foundations for optimal health.

Unfortunately, most tap water is far from pure, containing a vast array ofdisinfection byproducts, chemicals, radiation, heavy metals, and evenpharmaceutical drugs. Fluoride, which is still being added to many municipal water supplies, is yet another factor that can make the water you drink each day more harmful than healing.

The featured documentary, An Inconvenient Tooth,¹ reveals the many problems associated with water fluoridation, and why it’s a practice that really needs to be stopped for the public’s greater good.

Amazingly, the debate over the dangers of fluoride and has been ongoing for more than six decades. Yet study after study confirms that fluoride is a dangerous, toxic poison that bioaccumulates in your body while being ineffective at preventing dental decay...

Unregulated Contaminants Found in Many US Water Utilities

Fluoride isn’t the only hazard that might be lurking in your tap water. In related news, federal scientists report finding traces of 18 unregulated contaminants in one-third of the water samples collected from 25 municipal utilities across the US in their most recent testing. As reported by the featured article in Scientific American:²

“Included are 11 perfluorinated compounds, an herbicide, two solvents, caffeine, an antibacterial compound, a metal and an antidepressant...

‘The good news is the concentrations are generally pretty low,’ said Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist with the USGS who participated in the study. ‘But,’ he added, ‘there’s still the unknown. Are there long-term consequences of low-level exposure to these chemicals?’”

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), 11 of which were found in this most recent government test, have become so ubiquitous that many of them are now detected in humans—including children. According to the CDC's “Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals” published in 2009,³ a dozendifferent types of perfluorinated compounds were detected in Americans tested.

The potential health consequences of ingesting PFCs are not a complete mystery. As reported in the featured article:

“The two most common perfluorinated compounds, PFOS and PFOA, in the utilities’ water have been detected in the blood of nearly all people in the United States.

A panel of scientists has concluded⁴ that there is a ‘probable link’ between PFOA in drinking water and high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

The findings were based on people in Mid-Ohio Valley communities whose water was polluted with PFOA from a DuPont plant.” [Emphasis mine]

What You Need to Know About Perfluorinated Compounds

I've written many articles about one of the most common sources of these hazardous chemicals, namely non-stick cookware, but contaminated drinking water is another pervasive source. PFCs like PFOA and PFOS are part of an expanding group of chemicals commonly referred to as "gender-bending" chemicals, because they can disrupt your endocrine system and affect your sex hormones. In animal studies, PFOA has also been linked to:

Infertility -- A 2009 study⁵ found that both PFOA and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), dramatically increased the odds of infertility. PFOS increased the risk of infertility anywhere from 70 to 134 percent, while PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility.

Thyroid disease – According to a study⁶ published in 2010, PFOA can damage your thyroid function. Individuals with the highest PFOA concentrations were more than twice as likely to report current thyroid disease, compared to those with the lowest PFOA concentrations.

Your thyroid contains thyroglobulin protein, which binds to iodine to form hormones, which in turn influence essentially every organ, tissue, and cell in your body. Thyroid hormones are also required for growth and development in children. Thyroid disease, if left untreated, can lead to heart disease, infertility, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis.

Cancer -- PFOA has been associated with tumors in at least four different organs in animal tests (liver, pancreas, testicles, and mammary glands in rats), and has been associated with increases in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers. The EPA has ruled PFCs as "likely carcinogens," and has stated that PFOA "poses developmental and reproductive risks to humans."

Immune system problems -- Several studies by scientists in Sweden indicate that PFCs have an adverse effect on your immune system. As described in a report on PFCs by the Environmental Working Group⁷ (EWG), PFOA was found to decrease all immune cell subpopulations studied, in the thymus and spleen, and caused immunosupression.

Increased LDL cholesterol levels – A recent study in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine⁸ implicates both PFOA and PFOS. Children and teens with higher PFOA levels had higher levels of total cholesterol and LDL or "bad" cholesterol, while PFOS was associated with increased total cholesterol, including both LDL cholesterol and HDL or "good" cholesterol.

Fluoride—A Stealth Source of Arsenic Contamination

Another common water contamination is arsenic—a powerful carcinogen that has been linked to an increased risk of several types of cancer. The level of arsenic in US tap water tends to be high due to natural groundwater contamination.⁹ But the biggest culprit is actually fluoride, as the most common form of fluoride used for water fluoridation (hexafluorosilicic acid) is frequently contaminated with arsenic. In fact, according to one recent study,¹⁰ switching the type of fluoride used to pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride would reduce the amount of inorganic arsenic contamination in drinking water by 99 percent!

For people living in areas with fluoridated tap water, fluoride is a part of every glass of water, every bath and shower, and every meal cooked using that water. It seems inevitable that the addition of contaminated hexafluorosilicic acid to the water supply by definition must also increase the cancer rate in the US because of the arsenic it contains...

Moreover, not only is there mounting evidence that fluoride itself poses grave health risks to infants and children—includingreductions in IQ—arsenic exposure in utero and during early childhood is also particularly problematic, as it can cause lasting harm to children's developing brains, and endocrine and immune systems.

Water Filtration—A Must for Clean Pure Water…

I strongly recommend using a high-quality water filtration system unless you can verify the purity of your water. To be absolutely certain you are getting the purest water you can, you'll want to filter the water both at the point of entry and at the point of use. This means filtering all the water that comes into the house, and then filtering again at the kitchen sink. I currently use a whole house carbon-based water filtration system, in addition to a reverse osmosis (RO) filter to purify my drinking water.

You can read more about water filtration in this previous article to help you make a decision about what type of water filtration system will be best for you and your family. Since most water sources are now severely polluted, the issue of water filtration and purification couldn't be more important.

It is important to remember that once added, fluoride is very difficult to remove from water. The best way to remove fluoride from your water supply is to never put it in there in the first place. This is one of the reasons we are actively collaborating with Paul Connett and F.A.N. to help remove fluoride from the water supplies. To date, we have been successful at helping over 200 cities in North America to remove it from their water supply, including Portland, Oregon last year.

Ideal Water Sources

Besides purification, I also believe it’s critical to drink living water. I recently interviewed Dr. Gerald Pollack about his book, The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. This fourth phase of water is referred to as “structured water” and is the type of water found in all of your cells. This water has healing properties, and is naturally created in a variety of ways. Water from a deep spring is one excellent source of structured water. The deeper the better, as structured water is created under pressure. There's a great website called FindaSpring.com¹¹ where you can find a natural spring in your area.

But you can also promote structured water through vortexing. I personally drink vortexed water nearly exclusively as I became a big fan of Viktor Schauberger who did much pioneering work on vortexing about a century ago. Dr. Pollack found that by creating a vortex in a glass of water, you’re putting more energy into it, thereby increasing the structure of the water. According to Dr. Pollack, virtually ANY energy put into the water seems to create or build structured water.

My own R&D team is working on a careful study in which we use vortexed water to grow sprouts, to evaluate the vitality and effectiveness of the water. We’ve already budgeted a quarter million for this internal research to develop the best vortex machine on the market, because we believe an ideal vortexer could be one of the simplest ways to improve your health and we hope to bring it to market in the next year.

Water Fluoridation Is Anything But Safe...

Most likely, water fluoridation remains a government policy because the government agencies that have been promoting it as safe for all these years stand to lose public trust. The thing is, the longer they wait to take corrective action, and the more people discover the truth about fluoride, the worse public trust in those agencies will get anyway...

Clean pure water is a prerequisite to optimal health, and industrial chemicals, drugs and other toxic additives really have no place in our water supplies. So I urge you to join the Fluoride Action Network’s efforts¹² and your local anti-fluoride movements in the US and Canada to clean up our water.

Join the Fight to Get Fluoride Out of Drinking Water

There's no doubt about it: fluoride should not be ingested. Even scientists from the EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory have classified fluoride as a "chemical having substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity.” Furthermore, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 41 percent of American adolescents now have dental fluorosis—unattractive discoloration and mottling of the teeth that indicate overexposure to fluoride. Clearly, children are being overexposed, and their health and development put in jeopardy. Why?

At least when it comes to topical application, you have a choice. You can easily buy fluoride-free toothpaste and mouthwash. But you're stuck with whatever your community puts in the water, and it's very difficult to filter out of your water once it's added. Many do not have the resources or the knowledge to do so.

The only real solution is to stop the archaic practice of water fluoridation in the first place. Fortunately, the Fluoride Action Network has a game plan to END water fluoridation, both in the United States and Canada. Clean pure water is a prerequisite to optimal health. Industrial chemicals, drugs and other toxic additives really have no place in our water supplies. So, please, support the anti-fluoride movement by making a donation to the Fluoride Action Network today.

Source:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/28/fluoride-drinking-water.aspx
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Did you know the ACOG and CDC are not legally required to tell the truth about anything, including vaccines? Just one downfall to America's health system.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 23:28:00 +0000

CDC Not Legally Required to Tell the Truth About Anything, Including Vaccines

by Christina Sarich
Natural Society
January 9th, 2014

Since the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) aren’t legally required to tell the truth about anything, why should they? Maybe this is just one of many reasons the public is unaware of the many problems revolving around America’s health system.

The CDC is perhaps the most malicious in their information-twisting. Consider this recent upheaval about flu vaccinations. According to Dr. Peter Doshi in a British Medical Journal article review (BMJ 2013; 346:f3037):

“. . .perhaps the cleverest aspect of the influenza marketing strategy surrounds the claim that ‘flu’ and ‘influenza’ are the same. The distinction seems subtle, and purely semantic. But general lack of awareness of the difference might be the primary reason few people realize that even the ideal influenza vaccine, matched perfectly to circulating strains of wild influenza and capable of stopping all influenza viruses, can only deal with a small part of the ‘flu’ problem because most ‘flu’ appears to have nothing to do with influenza. Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive.”

So – if you didn’t catch the significance of that – while the CDC is reporting flu outbreaks across the country and thus our need for vaccines, only a flu-virus would require a vaccine, and only a small percentage of ‘flu’ is actually ‘flu.’

Additionally, there are only a few strains of any particular flu virus in any vaccine created seasonally and there are hundreds of flu viruses. No wonder many people feel ‘flu’ vaccines don’t work. It would be impossible for them to. Yet every year they publish a seasonal map with ‘flu’ outbreaks, which aren’t even accurately reporting the situation.

Or consider the recent documents unearthed in the UK that reveal over 30 years of cover-up regarding the link between vaccine hazards and their ineffectiveness in preventing the diseases they are trying to control. The CDC isn’t the only culprit, though.

The ACOG calls themselves the ‘leading authority on women’s health’, but they have said repeatedly that vaccines are safe for pregnant women to take. Based on what? Some of their literature states, “vaccination is on of the most important things that you can do for yourself and your baby.” And why is that, exactly? In a recent update to well-woman annual screening guidelines, vaccinations were again reiterated, including one for HPV, which has been called useless and dangerous by one of its developers.

Read: If Publicized, this Study Would Ruin Vaccines

There isn’t one single study that proves vaccines are safe for pregnant women, because no pregnant women have ever been tested in clinical conditions to see if the ACOG can make that statement honestly. What do the vaccine makers publish on their drug inserts, but a categorical warning that sounds something like: “the safety and effectiveness have not been established in pregnant women or nursing mothers” for these vaccines.

Few people seem to consider that these agencies suffer no criminal repercussions, fines, or even a slap on the hand if they report wrong information, or even knowingly hide information about vaccines or any other medical issue. No one sues the CDC or the ACOG for making these ridiculous claims – that vaccines are safe. Studies are cherry picked for publication in medical journals and then taken as the God-forsaken truth.

As people across the nation try to make intelligent, informed decisions about whether or not they should be vaccinating their children (both born and unborn), or themselves, the facts are not presented clearly by any institution that does not have their hand in the cookie jar. The former head of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, now works as the President for one of the biggest drug makers on the planet, Merck. Guess what division she is head of – the VACCINE division. Merck’s vaccine division is worth at least $5 billion annually. They make cervical cancer vaccines like Gardasil, chickenpox vaccines, and obviously H1N1 swine flu vaccines as well.

Without throwing caution to the wind, do your own research on this controversial topic, but realize that the money trail leads where it leads, and information in support of vaccinations may be utterly biased by Big Pharma dollars.

Source:
http://naturalsociety.com/acog-cdc-legally-required-tell-truth-anything-including-vaccines/
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"If traditional bacteria can't even grow well in mercury, do you think it is healthy for our children to have mercury in their bodies?"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 18:19:00 +0000

Oral cholera vaccine loaded with GMOs to be tested on babies worldwide

By Jonathan Benson
Natural News
January 03, 2014

California-based vaccine manufacturer PaxVax has reportedly submitted an application to begin international trials of a novel oral cholera vaccine that contains live, genetically modified (GM) bacteria. VacTruth.com reports that the new vaccine is set to be tested on more than 1,000 individuals, many of whom are young children, in a three-part clinical trial series to take place throughout Australia.

In a recent application filing with the Australian Government, PaxVax makes plain its intent to administer the live, GM bacteria in both young and old and in every region of the country. Participants will be instructed to literally consume a cocktail of mercury-resistant, GM Shigella flexneri NR1 bacteria derived from the Vibrio cholera bacterial strain, which is recognized as the causative agent of the gastroenteritis disease known as cholera.

According to the filing, the GM cholera strain used in the vaccine has essentially been artificially neutralized to prevent the toxic molecules that would otherwise cause the disease from being produced. The non-active B-subunit of the cholera toxin molecule, in other words, is reportedly still synthesized in the bacteria, but it allegedly no longer holds the capacity to induce either disease or toxicity.

"Multiple steps were required to produce the genetic modifications found in the GMO," explains the filing.

"Fragments of the Cholera toxin A subunit and haemolysin A genes were cloned into separate plasmids. The gene fragments were then modified in vitro by the deletion of part of the toxin gene and by the insertion of the mer operon. The plasmids were transferred into the V. cholerae, one at a time, and the genetic modifications were incorporated into the bacterial genome by recombination."
Oral cholera vaccine developed using brain-damaging mercury

To some, this might all sound like positive progress in the eradication of a disease that infects as many as 5 million people around the world annually, among which about 100,000 end up dying. But to those who have been paying attention to recent developments on the GMO front, feeding children and adults untested transgenic bacteria could become a surefire recipe for a public health disaster.

"According to PaxVax's application for their proposed clinical trial, 'There have been no credible reports of adverse effects on human health and safety or the environment resulting from any of these releases,'" writes Missy Fluegge for VacTruth.com. "That is pharma-speak for 'there have been no credible studies to assess the safety and efficacy of this vaccine.'"

This is true of all GMOs currently on the market, none of which have gone through rigorous, long-term safety testing prior to their approval.

Nobody knows for sure how these synthetic substances will alter the human genome, especially later on in life, potentially leading to permanent and undesirable changes in human cells, tissue and even DNA.

Then, there is the issue of the new PaxVax oral cholera vaccine having been programmed to grow in the presence of mercury, a known neurotoxin that is still being intentionally added to injectable vaccines.

Based on its design, the new vaccine more than likely contains added mercury, which means that it threatens to permanently damage the brains and gastrointestinal tracts of those who end up consuming it.

"If traditional bacteria can't even grow well in mercury, do you think it is healthy for our children to have mercury in their bodies?" asks Fluegge. "Do our children need another mercury-laden vaccine?"

You can read the PaxVax clinical trial application for its new oral cholera vaccine here: http://www.ogtr.gov.au.

Source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/043392_oral_vaccine_cholera_GMOs.html
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His First 4 Sentences Are Interesting. The 5th Blew My Mind. And Made Me A Little Sick

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 14:59:00 +0000

Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

by John Green
Aug 20, 2013
Upworthy

John discusses the complicated reasons why the United States spends so much more on health care than any other country in the world, and along the way reveals some surprising information, including that Americans spend more of their tax dollars on public health care than people in Canada, the UK, or Australia. Who's at fault? Insurance companies? Drug companies? Malpractice lawyers? Hospitals? Or is it more complicated than a simple blame game? (Hint: It's that one.)

For a much more thorough examination of health care expenses in America, I recommend this series at The Incidental Economist:
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-us-health-care-system-so-expensive-introduction/

The Commonwealth Fund's Study of Health Care Prices in the US:
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2012/May/1595_Squires_explaining_high_hlt_care_spending_intl_brief.pdf

Some of the stats in this video also come from this New York Times story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/health/colonoscopies-explain-why-us-leads-the-world-in-health-expenditures.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is the first part in what will be a periodic series on health care costs and reforms leading up to the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, in 2014.

Source:
http://www.upworthy.com/his-first-4-sentences-are-interesting-the-5th-blew-my-mind-and-made-me-a-little-sick-2?c=reccon1
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Since 2003 Europeans have suddenly enjoyed fewer years of healthy life.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 04:05:00 +0000

European Health Levels Suddenly Collapsed After 2003 And Nobody is Sure Why

The Physics arXiv Blog
November 26, 2013

Europeans are living longer. But since 2003, they’ve suddenly enjoyed fewer years of healthy life, say demographers

One of the extraordinary features of the 20th century was the inexorable rise in life expectancy across the world. A baby born in Italy in 1900 had a life expectancy of about 41 years. By 2010, this had risen to 81 years, a rising trend that continues.

And yet this increasing lifespan masks a dark secret. Many developed countries are suffering an epidemic of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease thanks to poor diets and sedentary lifestyles. The numbers are such that they must inevitably influence the health of nations as a whole but by how much?

Today, Ugo Bardi and Virginia Perini at the University of Florence in Italy offer disturbing evidence that the health of people in Italy has fallen dramatically since 2003. And they say the same pattern is being repeated across most of Europe for reasons that are hard to explain.

While life expectancy is relatively easy to measure objectively, the quality of a nation’s health is much harder to assess. In Europe, a body known as the European Community Household Project has been monitor the health levels since 1995 using surveys .

The data from these surveys allows statisticians to calculate an index known as Healthy Life Years Expectancy. This is a measure of the number of years of healthy life that people enjoy, or at least think they enjoy (since the way people perceive their own health is a key variable that is difficult to account for).

For many years, the number of years of healthy life have increased in line with life expectancy. For example, in Italy between 1995 and 2003, life expectancy increased from 75 to 80.1 for men and from 81.8 to 85.3 for women. At the same time, the number of years of healthy life increased from 66.7 to 70.9 for men and from 70 to 74.4 for women.

But in 2003, all that changed. The number of healthy years of life began to drop steeply, eventually stabilising around 62 years for both sexes. So while men and women are living longer, they are having fewer years of healthy life today than they did ten years ago. “an increase in life expectancy is not necessarily an indication of better living conditions of the population,” say Bardi and Perini.

That’s an extraordinary change. But it’s not limited to Italy. A similar drop occurred after 2003 in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Finland and Sweden. In France, a less pronounced drop occurred in 2006.

So almost everywhere in Europe, people are living longer but having fewer years of healthy life. Only in the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands did people buck this trend with the numbers of years of healthy life increasing in these places since 2003.

That raises an obvious question: what happened in 2003?

Bardi and Perini say the obvious culprit is the weather. In 2003, Europe experienced one of the most extreme heat waves on record. In August 2003 alone, an extra 45,000 people died across Europe, almost certainly because of complications associated with the high temperatures.

But this heat wave must have had other effects too. “It must have affected also the general health of those who survived the wave,” say Bardi and Perini.

Their hypothesis is that the extreme conditions triggered long term illnesses, particularly among those suffering from the chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and so on.

That’s a startling conclusion that has significant implications. For a start, while the summer of 2003 was clearly unusual, climatologists have repeatedly warned that more hotter summers are on the way. So we can expect more heat related deaths and illnesses.

Then there are the financial implications. More years of ill heath translate into significant health-care costs. And when these extra costs have to be paid for by governments themselves, as they do in Europe, that raises some uncomfortable issues. Either other government spending will have to be cut or taxes will have to rise to make up the extra. Neither prospect looks enticing.

And finally, there is the impact on quality of life. While people are happy to live longer, they want to spend this extra time enjoying life. Nobody wants more years of ill health. The drop in health raises the depressing possibility of a continent filled with an increasingly ill and suffering population

But while the weather is a possible culprit, it does not explain all of the trends. For example, France suffered the same increase in death rates during the summer of 2003 as many other European countries. And yet the number of years of healthy life didn’t drop here until 2006. How come?

And how did some northern European countries escape the drop, such as the UK and Denmark, while others didn’t, like Sweden and Finland?

Whatever the answers, the bigger question is what to do to reverse the trend or at least mitigate it. “These result highlight the negative effects of climate change on people’s health and underline the need of mitigation measures, especially in urban areas,” say Bardi and Perini.

Time for some careful thinking.

Source:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/3664ec51205c
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Sugary drinks show links to cancer for women

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 01:14:00 +0000

Sugary Drinks Linked To Cancer Risk In Women

by Alice G. Walton

A new study out in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention reports that the more sugar-sweetened beverages a woman drinks, the greater her risk for endometrial cancer. This form of uterine cancer has long been linked to overweight and obesity, which can increase the body’s levels of insulin and estrogen. In fact, the new study, though not terribly surprising, showed that sugar consumption itself was linked to estrogen-dependent type I endometrial cancer, but not the less common estrogen-independent type II form.

The study followed over 23,000 women, asking them how frequently they consumed various foods and drinks over the past 12 months. The team was especially interested in sugar-sweetened sodas like Coke and Pepsi, both in their caffeinated and un-caffeinated forms; other sugary carbonated drinks, like 7-Up; and non-carbonated sugary drinks like Hawaiian Punch and lemonade. Sugar-free drinks included both low- or no-calorie caffeinated and caffeine-free cola (for example, Pepsi-Free and Diet 7-Up). The team was also interested in whether sweets and baked goods, and starchy foods, might also be connected to endometrial cancer risk.

Women who drank the most sugary drinks – more than four servings per week – had a 78% greater risk of developing estrogen-dependent type I endometrial cancer than women who drank none. Women who were older, had higher body mass index (BMI), a history of diabetes, later menopause, and any type of estrogen therapy also had a greater risk of developing endometrial cancer, which lines up with earlier research. But the connection between sugary drinks and estrogen-dependent endometrial cancer was there even regardless of body weight.

The authors say the results aren’t surprising, given the known connections, but they’re the first to spell out the links between sugar and endometrial cancer.

“Obese women tend to have higher levels of estrogens and insulin than women of normal weight,” said study author Maki Inoue-Choi in a statement. “Increased levels of estrogens and insulin are established risk factors for endometrial cancer.”

Interestingly, were no connections between sugar-free drinks, sweets/baked goods or starch consumption and cancer risk in this study. “One possibility is that sugar from whole foods comes with other nutrients, such as fiber,” Inoue-Choi told NBCNews. “Sugar from beverages doesn’t come with these nutrients.”

The study results lend more evidence to the connection between what we consume and our risk for disease. And eating excessive amounts of sugar has been linked not only to cancer, but to a host of other serious health problems as well.

“Research has documented the contribution of sugar-sweetened beverages to the obesity epidemic,” said Inoue-Choi. “Too much added sugar can boost a person’s overall calorie intake and may increase the risk of health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”

Endometrial cancer occurs in the cells that form the lining of the uterus. There are other types of uterine cancer, but endometrial is the most common, affecting about 50,000 women per year in the U.S. Though it’s often caught early enough to be treated successfully, about 8,000 women die from it each year.

Source:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/11/23/sugary-drinks-linked-to-cancer-risk-in-women/

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Fracking Our Food Supply

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 01:33:00 +0000

The effects of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) on food supply and the environment are slowly emerging. The fracking process runs contrary to safe sustainable food production. In the agriculturally and energy-rich region called the Marcellus Shale, a tug-of-war between food producers and energy companies has begun.

Chemicals used in the fracking process contaminate surrounding land, water, and air. Ranchers in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Louisiana, and New Mexico have been reporting health problems and incidents of dead and tainted livestock, due to elevated levels of contaminants from nearby wells.

While no long-term research on the effects of fracking on humans, livestock, or plants exists, a peer-reviewed report by Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald has linked fracking to illness in animals. They believe chemicals leaking from fracking sites could start appearing in human food supplies, because of a lack of regulation and testing.

There is an absence of both adequate disclosures by energy companies and timely regulation by government to protect the environment and landowners. Secrecy shrouding the fracking process and Bush-era loopholes obscure consumer knowledge of food safety.

A lack of whistleblowers has been attributed to fear of retaliation, nondisclosure agreements, or involvement in active litigation. While some fear that the early warnings will be ignored, two major agricultural insurance companies now refuse to cover damages from fracking.

Sources:
Elizabeth Royte, “Fracking Our Food Supply,” Nation, December 17, 2012,http://www.thenation.com/article/171504/fracking-our-food-supply.

Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, “Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health,” New Solutions 22, no. 1 (January 2012): 51–77,http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/Impacts_of_Gas_Drilling_on_Human_and_Animal_Health.

Student Researchers: Rayne Madison and Nayeli Castaneda (College of Marin) Faculty Evaluators: Susan Rahman and Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

http://www.projectcensored.org/18-fracking-food-supply
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 23:33:00 +0000

Sick in America: What Today’s Reactionaries Don’t Want You to Know

By Thomas Magstadt

Nation of Change

Oct. 21, 2013

Much of what we hear about health care is pure propaganda with no basis whatsoever in fact. The purpose of propaganda is to manipulate, not to enlighten or inform, so it's no surprise that the partisan fight over health care in Congress has generated more heat than light. The baleful effect is to deceive and thereby perpetuate the status quo—and an ever-greater inequality that threatens to destroy the fabric of our society.

Among the false impressions created by libertarians, FOX news, and reactionaries of all stripes is that Americans far more freedom to choose physicians, hospitals and treatments than people in Europe and other advanced societies with single payer systems. Most anyone who has lived abroad and experienced a single-payer system in operation knows that's simply not true. Nor is it true that people in these countries get less personalized attention from doctors than we do. (Ask anybody who's spent a few days in a hospital lately how much time the doctor spent with them.) It's what the Corporatocracy tells us, and many of us are only too eager to believe, but it's not true.

The U.S. is NOT the leader in health care in the modern world.

In fact, the U.S. is not even in the top ten. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the health care system in the U.S. ranked thirty-eighth in the world in 2000. If you're thinking that was over a decade ago, maybe we're doing better now, think again.

Americans DO NOT LIVE LONGER than people in many other advanced countries.

Don't trust UN figures? How about Bloomberg? According to a Bloomberg study of the most efficient health systems in the world, the U.S. ranks forty-sixth, just below Iran (oops!) and just above Serbia. Among the top ten (Hong Kong, Singapore Japan, Israel, Spain, Italy, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, and Sweden), life expectancy is significantly higher (and infant mortality is lower), as it is in the UK, Austria, Canada, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Germany, among others. Amazingly, getting better results costs a lot less in these countries than we have to shell out.

Medical treatment in the U.S. is BY FAR THE MOST EXPENSIVE in the world.

Health care costs in US account for over 17 percent of total GDP every year—roughly $2.7 trillion in 2012. By itself, that's a very big number, as big as the entire GDP of France and bigger than Brazil's, but it takes on a whole new meaning when compared to what people in other advanced societies spend on health care and what they get in return. Among the top ten most efficient health care systems in the world, health care costs as a percentage of GDP ranges from a low of 3.8 percent in Singapore to a high of 11.5 percent in Switzerland. The average for the top 25 countries, all of which rank above the U.S. in health care efficiency, is 6.54 percent. That's 6.54 percent of GDP for a better result than we get in the U.S. spending 17.2 percent of GDP.

On a per capita basis, we don't fare any better. Canada, for example, devotes 10.8 percent of GDP to health care, or $5,630 on average. The per capita cost of health-care in the UK, with its "socialist" National Health Service, is $3,609. In South Korea with a higher life expectancy than we have, it's only $1,616. In the U.S. the figure is a budget-busting $8,608.

The American health care system IS NOT A FREE MARKET.

There's no such thing as a free market and the exorbitant price of health care in the U.S. is a glaring example. "In reality, per-capita state-sponsored health expenditures in the United States are thethird-highest in the world, only below Norway and Luxembourg. And this is before our new health law kicks in." The quote is from an article in The Atlantic (March 8, 2012).

The title speaks volumes: "The Myth of the Free-Market American Health Care System." As the author a libertarian journalist named, Megan McArdle, points out:

The thing to remember in America is that we have single-payer health care for the elderly and for the poor: the two costliest groups. In addition, the relatively healthy middle class has heavily-subsidized private health insurance, in which few individuals have the freedom to choose the insurance plan they receive. Neither of these facts commend the American health-care system to devotees of the free market.

McArdle is manifestly NOT a proponent of state-financed health insurance. She points out that two of the world's best health-care systems are found in Switzerland and Singapore. Both are essentially market-based systems, but the Swiss get subsidies (on a sliding scale tied to income) to purchase health insurance and Singapore has a system of mandatory health savings accounts. But note that in both countries, coverage costs far less than in American, health care efficiency and life expectancy are higher, and coverage is UNIVERSAL.

Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are the HIGHEST IN THE WORLD.

Pharmaceuticals cost far less in most countries than they do in the US; most prescription drugs patented, manufactured, and sold here in the U.S. are sold abroad at much, much lower prices. Here are a few facts for 200 of the world's best selling drugs across 13 therapeutic areas:

European prescription drug prices average just 50 percent of U.S. prices.
Japanese drug prices average 66 percent of U.S. prices.
In price-comparison studies weighted for volume, brand-name prescription drug prices are often higher in the U.S. than other OECD countries; a US government study found that patented drug prices cost 18-67 percent less in OECD countries than in the U.S.

One eye-watering example: The exact same medicated eye drops that cost $125 in the U.S. cost $4 in Greece.

Drug prices rose 3.6 percent in 2012, twice the 1.7 percent inflation rate. Individual drug prices roses even faster. In the first 9 months of 2012, a heartburn drug called Nexium jumped 7.8 percent (a $262 average prescription); Abilify, for bipolar disorder, increased 10.4 percent ($642 per prescription); Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, went up 9.7 percent ($193 per prescription). At this rate, if the insurance companies don't bankrupt government and the middle class, the drug companies will.

Conclusion #1: There's no perfect health care system anywhere in the world, and whether the best system possible is one that is state-funded or market-based is debatable.

Conclusion #2: "Among advanced economies, the U.S. spends the most on health care on a relative cost basis with the worst outcome." Bloomberg

Conclusion #3: The U.S. health-care system combines the worst features of both state-funded and market-based systems with none of the advantages of either.

This article was published at Nation of Change at:
http://www.nationofchange.org/sick-america-what-today-s-reactionaries-don-t-want-you-know-1382361276. All rights are reserved.
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 21:41:00 +0000

Do You Understand the Risks of Tylenol? Probably Not

Most Americans know that overdosing can be dangerous but many wrongly think it’s safe to mix drugs containing acetaminophen, a nationwide poll found.

By T. Christian Miller and Jeff Gerth
Pro Publica
Sept. 25, 201

Americans have a spotty understanding of the risks of Tylenol, a nationwide poll conducted earlier this year shows.

About half said they are not aware of any safety warnings involving the drug. But 80 percent said that overdosing on the medicine could result in serious side effects.

Thirty-five percent of those surveyed said it was safe to mix Tylenol with another medicine that contains acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. This practice is known as "double dipping" and can lead to accidental overdoses.

Taken together, the results suggest a mixed record of success for the labels on Tylenol packages intended to warn consumers about the dangers of the drug. It also suggests that the acetaminophen public awareness campaigns sponsored over the past several years by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the drug industry and McNeil Consumer Healthcare Products, the Johnson & Johnson unit that makes Tylenol, have yet to be fully effective.

When taken as recommended, acetaminophen—known in many countries as paracetamol—is generally safe, with few side effects. But at higher amounts, it can damage the liver, sometimes with lethal consequences.

As an investigation by ProPublica reported last week, about 150 people die each year after accidentally ingesting too much acetaminophen, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tens of thousands more are sent to hospitals and emergency rooms for treatment from acetaminophen poisoning, studies show. The FDA now calls acetaminophen toxicity a "persistent, important public health problem."

The telephone poll of 1,003 adults was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International in February and March, and it has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. It was commissioned by ProPublica and "This American Life," which produced a radio story on the risks of acetaminophen. Full results from the survey are here.

Fifty-one percent of poll respondents were unaware of any safety warnings associated with Tylenol. However, 68 percent correctly said that liver damage could result from taking too much of the drug, while 55 percent said that an overdose could lead to death.

To gauge whether these responses reflected a real knowledge of the dangers of overdosing, the poll also asked about problems that are not caused by excessive consumption, including heart palpitations, tingling in the fingers, and severe brain damage. But large numbers gave the wrong answer. For example, almost half of those surveyed (49 percent) said incorrectly that overdosing could cause heart palpitations, calling into question how much Americans truly understand about the risks of overdosing on acetaminophen.

A little more than half of those surveyed—54 percent—said they had heard of warnings about mixing Tylenol and alcohol. Studies have shown that alcohol can make the liver more susceptible to damage from the drug. The FDA warns consumers on product labels against taking acetaminophen after three drinks.

Sizable numbers of Americans also said they believed it was safe to take several different medications containing acetaminophen at once, the poll found.

For instance, 35 percent of respondents said it was safe to combine the maximum recommended dose of Extra Strength Tylenol with NyQuil, a cold remedy that also contains acetaminophen. It is not, according to the FDA.

People who take multiple acetaminophen products may inadvertently exceed the FDA's maximum recommended daily dose of 4 grams, or eight extra strength acetaminophen pills. The FDA has cited reports of people suffering liver injury after taking between 5 and 7.5 grams per day over several days. ProPublica has created a simple app that allows people to look up how much acetaminophen is in many common drugs.

Regulators worry that people don't understand that many medicines contain acetaminophen—more than 600 in all, including commonly used prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet.

Michael S. Wolf, a professor at Northwestern University's medical school, has studied double dipping and says the practice is "a reflection of how horrible our health system is at communicating the active ingredients" in medications.

The FDA has required over-the-counter acetaminophen to carry a warning that the drug can cause "severe liver damage" since 2009. While it mandates that prescription medications containing acetaminophen warn that overdosing can lead to "death," no such warning is required for over-the-counter acetaminophen. About 60 percent of the drug is sold without a prescription.

The FDA's Safe Use Initiative provides advice on how to correctly use acetaminophen through pamphlets, a webpage, and YouTube videos, the most popular of which has been seen some 19,000 times since it debuted in January 2011.

"Public education and public campaigns are not something that the FDA is well resourced for," said Dr. Sandra Kweder, an FDA official who helps regulate the drug and appears in the video.

The maker of Tylenol—McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson—sponsors its own informational website, Get Relief Responsibly. The company also has created television advertisements, posters for doctors' offices, and a YouTube channel to educate consumers.

"McNeil has been a leader in educating doctors and providing materials about overdose and misuse of medicines containing acetaminophen," the company said in a statement. It said its "acetaminophen awareness messages have been seen over one billion times."

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group representing McNeil and other acetaminophen makers, has worked in consultation with the government to create the Know Your Dose education campaign.

"We want to be as constructive and helpful as we can, to say, ‘Read and follow the label, taking too much can lead to liver damage, and don't take two products at the same time,'" said Emily Skor, vice president of communications for the organization.

Source:
http://www.propublica.org/article/tylenols-risks-not-fully-understood-poll-shows
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:19:00 +0000

Is Your Phone Smart Enough to Not Poison the People Recycling it? This One Is

By Chris Sweeney

Nation of Change

Oct. 12, 2013

When Ted Smith looks at a smartphone, he doesn’t see a multipurpose gadget. He sees faces. He sees the face of the Indonesian or Ugandan miner who unearthed the raw materials. He sees the face of the factory worker who lives on a corporate campus in China and works long shifts, exposed to hazardous chemicals while assembling miniscule components. He sees the face of the salesperson at Best Buy or Target, and the face of the customer. He sees the faces of those who encounter the product after it’s been jettisoned and shipped halfway around the world to regions awash in electronic waste.

Smith, 67, began tracking the electronics industry in the early 1970s. Seemingly overnight, a swath of California morphed into an epicenter of new technology. As massive semiconductor and consumer electronics manufacturers sprang up and churned out cutting-edge products, Smith rounded up community members to take a stand against the industry’s lack of transparency about the chemicals used along the production line and the threats these substances posed to workers, the environment, and nearby residents. In 1982, Smith founded the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Twenty years later, he expanded his activist scope and co-founded the International Campaign for Responsible Technology.

“We realized early on that this industry was going to be a major engine of the future,” Smith says. “And we had broad-based concerns. It wasn’t just environmental. There were labor-rights issues, health issues, the need to preserve neighborhoods.”

Over the past 40 years, Smith’s worries have manifested on a global scale. The consumer electronics industry is now a multibillion-dollar juggernaut that churns out new products year-round. In 2012, sales of electronics in the United States topped $200 billion, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry group that represents 2,000 companies, including Sony, Samsung, and Apple. The average American household now owns 24 electronic products, many of which will be rendered obsolete within a few years.

So it should be no surprise that consumer electronics is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. waste stream, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2009, the most recent year for which the EPA has data, 2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for “end-of-life management,” yet only a quarter of them were collected for recycling.

It doesn’t just disappear

Every year, heaps of American e-waste, from smartphones to computers to stereo systems, are shipped to India, China, Ghana, Pakistan, Peru, and other developing countries. By some estimates, 80 percent of the U.S. e-waste collected ends up on foreign shores, where regulations are lax and incentive for risk high.

The goods are generally auctioned off in bulk to scrap companies and smelters. These companies pay locals—often including children—meager wages to strip smidgens of gold, copper, and palladium from the discarded devices. Sometimes, this involves concocting a noxious stew of cyanide and nitric acid, then burning the remaining plastic in crude firepits. Throughout the process, workers are exposed to lead, mercury, and cadmium, among other toxic substances.

One place our waste ends up is Guiyu, China, a port city of 150,000 on the South China Sea. As documented by the Basel Action Network, Guiyu is home to more than 5,000 small, mostly family-run businesses that trade in e-waste. A study published in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives found that children living in Guiyu had significantly higher levels of lead in their blood than children from Chendian, a nearby city with no e-waste processing.

Meanwhile, the ill effects of e-waste may be circling back to U.S. dinner plates. Researchers at Monmouth University released a study this spring that found high levels of lead in U.S. rice imports. One possible cause is the electronic waste industry, the lead author said in an interview with the BBC.

Benign by design

But to make meaningful progress on the e-waste crisis, Smith says, we can’t just focus on the waste. From mining to manufacturing to recycling, consumers, corporations, and governments need to rethink the life of our devices from beginning to end.

Imagine a phone that’s made using conflict-free minerals and is encased in a shell made of nontoxic chemicals. Imagine if that same phone, which looks and works like every other touchscreen smartphone on the market, was manufactured under the supervision of labor-rights organizations and in close collaboration with an established, reputable e-waste recycler that made sure every reusable and recyclable component was recovered safely.

That’s the ambition of Fairphone, a Dutch startup that’s currently producing its first batch of 20,000 phones—half of which have already been pre-ordered. The Fairphone is one of the most palpable examples of “benign-by-design,” a school of thought that aims to make products less harmful throughout their entire life cycle.

So far, the most significant benign-by-design achievements have been in the field of green chemistry, buried in academic journals. A small tweak in how a plastic is produced could make a product safer to build and disassemble. Fairphone is an instance where the benign-by-design mentality is helping meet a blossoming demand for sustainable electronics.

While Smith sees promise in Fairphone’s approach and the sustainable electronics movement, major manufacturers “living under the dictate of the quarterly profit” remain the largest obstacle. He says, “To really develop benign-by-design, we have to change the business model.” And that includes compelling manufacturers to devise effective take-back programs that are widely publicized and easy for consumers to access.

States lead the way

One persistent barrier in the United States, however, is the lack of federal legislation to make sure e-waste is properly recycled. Compare that with the European Union, which last year imposed a strict directive requiring that by 2019 member countries collect 65 percent of the weight of all electronics put on sale in the preceding three years or 85 percent of all e-waste generated per year. Under the EU’s policy, retailers will be required to take e-waste from consumers. Companies—retailers, manufacturers, and recyclers—found to be in violation could be hit with stiff fines.

Further complicating matters is that the United States isn’t a signatory of the Basel Convention, an international treaty regulating how hazardous materials, including e-waste, are transported and disposed of. Fortunately, a growing number of states are implementing e-waste recycling programs. If done properly, they can steer millions of pounds of potentially harmful electronics into sustainable, regulated channels rather than overseas where there’s minimal oversight.

“Every state is very different and poses unique opportunities and challenges for increasing electronics recycling,” Sarah Murray, coordinator of E-Cycle Wisconsin, said in an email.

Wisconsin’s program, launched three years ago, has already collected more than 100 million pounds of e-waste. With budgets tight across the country, however, she warns that some states may not have the resources to staff and implement an e-waste program. “We were … fortunate that the legislation gave us dedicated positions for this purpose. That has meant we’ve had enough manpower to do necessary administrative tasks, educate stakeholders and the public, provide compliance assistance, and conduct inspections.”

As the piecemeal push to alleviate the effects of e-waste becomes more cohesive, Smith and the International Campaign for Responsible Technology are homing in on a handful of specific objectives that could usher in a future of sustainable electronics. One of their biggest ambitions is to see a requirement that companies disclose all of the chemicals used in a product’s lifecycle.

“Nobody I know knows the number of chemicals used in the manufacturing of electronic products. It’s probably in the range of several thousand. Some are very standard, run-of-the-mill chemicals, but others are exotics … and many are extremely hazardous,” Smith says. “We need disclosure of the entire chemical footprint. Until we understand that better, it’s difficult to push.”

But perhaps the biggest catalysts for change are the faces Smith sees. He mentions the possibility of building an app that shows the faces of all the people who’ll encounter the phone along the supply chain, from the miners to the factory workers to the smelters.

“I do believe if people could see the harm, they wouldn’t support it,” he says.

Source:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-human-cost-of-stuff/smart-phone-why-its-time-for-a-kind-phone
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:34:00 +0000

Are You Living Your Eulogy or Your Résumé?

by Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
09/23/2013

"Today I want every American to see how these men and women lived," President Obama said Sunday, eulogizing the 12 men and women killed in the Washington Navy Yard shooting. He spoke of volunteers who made time to give back to their communities, like "Frank Kohler, giving dictionaries to every third-grader in his county," and "Marty Bodrog, leading the children's Bible study at church."

There were fathers like Mike Ridgell, "coaching his daughters' softball teams and joining Facebook just to keep up with his girls, one of whom said he was always the cool dad." There were mothers like Mary Francis Knight, "devoted to her daughters ... who had just recently watched with joy as her older daughter got married," and grandparents like John Johnson, "always smiling, giving bear hugs to his 10 grandchildren ... who would have welcomed his 11th grandchild this fall."

Have you noticed that when people die, their eulogies celebrate life very differently from the way we define success in our everyday existence? Eulogies are, in fact, very Third Metric. At HuffPost we've made the Third Metric -- redefining success beyond money and power to include well-being, wisdom and our ability to wonder and to give -- a key editorial focus. But while it's not hard to live a Third Metric life, it's very easy not to. It's easy to let ourselves get consumed by our work. It's easy to use work to let ourselves forget the things and the people that truly sustain us. It's easy to let technology wrap us in a perpetually harried, stressed-out existence. It's easy, in effect, to miss our lives even while we're living them. Until we're no longer living them.

For most of us, our eulogy will be not just the first formal marking down of what our lives were about but the only one. The eulogy is the foundational document of our legacy, of how people remember us, of how we live on in the minds and hearts of others. And it is very telling what you don't hear in eulogies. You almost never hear things like:

"Of course his crowning achievement was when he made senior vice president."

Or:

"What everybody loved most about her was how she ate lunch at her desk. Every day."

Or:

"He was proud that he never made it to one of his kid's Little League games because he always wanted to go over those figures one more time."

Or:

"She didn't have any real friends, but she had 600 Facebook friends, and she dealt with every email in her inbox every night."

Or:

"But he will live on, not in our hearts or memories, because we barely knew him, but in his PowerPoint slides, which were always meticulously prepared."

No matter how much a person spends his or her life burning the candle at both ends, chasing a toxic definition of success and generally missing out on life, the eulogy is always about the other stuff: what they gave, how they connected, how much they meant to the lives of the real people around them, small kindnesses, lifelong passions and what made them laugh.

So the question is: Why do we spend so much time on what our eulogy is not going to be?

"Eulogies aren't résumés," David Brooks wrote in June. "They describe the person's care, wisdom, truthfulness and courage. They describe the million little moral judgments that emanate from that inner region."

And yet we spend so much time and effort and energy on those résumé entries, which are gone as soon our heart stops beating. Even for those who die with amazing résumés, whose lives were synonymous with accomplishment and achievement, their eulogies are mostly about what they did when they weren't achieving and succeeding -- at least by our current, broken definition of success. For example, look at Steve Jobs, a man whose life, at least as the public saw it, was about creating things, things that were, yes, amazing and game-changing, but when his sister, Mona Simpson, rose to memorialize him at his memorial service at Stanford University, that's not what she focused on.

Yes, she talked about his work and his work ethic, but mostly as manifestations of his passions. "Steve worked at what he loved," she said. But what really moved him, what he really loved, was love. "Love was his supreme virtue," she said, "his god of gods." And though yes, he loved his work, he loved his family too:

When [his son] Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa's boyfriends and Erin's travel and skirt lengths and Eve's safety around the horses she adored. And then she added this touching image: "None of us who attended Reed's graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing."

And about his wife: "His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic."

And then there were lines like these, sprinkled throughout:

"Steve was humble."

"Steve liked to keep learning."
"Steve cultivated whimsy."

"With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun."

"He treasured happiness."

"He was an intensely emotional man."

His sister made sure in her eulogy that we knew that Steve Jobs was a lot more than just the guy who invented the iPhone. He was a brother and a husband and a father who knew the true value of what technology can so easily distract us from. Even if you build an iconic product, even one that lives on, what will be foremost in the minds of the people you care about most will be the memories you built in their lives. In her 1951 novel Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar has the Roman emperor meditating on his death: "[I]t seems to me as I write this hardly important to have been emperor."

And Thomas Jefferson's epitaph describes him as "author of the Declaration of American Independence ... and father of the University of Virginia." No mention of the presidency.

What the old adage that we should live every day as our last usually means is that we shouldn't wait until it's our last day on Earth to begin prioritizing the things that really matter.

Anyone with a few smartphones and a full email inbox knows that it's easy to live while not being aware we're living. So a Third Metric life would be one lived in a way that's mindful of what our eulogy will one day be. "I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it," joked George Carlin. We may not be listening to our own eulogy, but we're actually writing it all the time, every day. The question is how much we're giving the eulogizer to work with.

This past summer an obituary of a Seattle woman named Jane Lotter, who died of cancer at 60, went viral. The author of the obit was Lotter herself.

"One of the few advantages of dying from Grade 3, Stage IIIC endometrial cancer, recurrent and metastasized to the liver and abdomen," she wrote, "is that you have time to write your own obituary." After giving a lovely and lively account of her life, she shows that she lived a life with the true definition of success in mind. "My beloved Bob, Tessa, and Riley," she writes. "My beloved friends and family. How precious you all have been to me. Knowing and loving each one of you was the success story of my life."

Just months before the historian Tony Judt died of ALS in 2010, he gave an amazing interview to Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. She asked him about his spiritual beliefs.

He replied:

I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a single or multiple godhead. I respect people who do, but I don't believe it myself. But there's a big "but" which enters in here: I am much more conscious than I ever was, for obvious reasons, of what it will mean to people left behind once I'm dead. It won't mean anything for me, but it will mean a lot to them, and it's important for them, by which I mean my children or my wife or my close friends, that some spirit of me is, in a positive way, present in their lives, in their heads, in their imaginings and so on. So in one curious way I've come to believe in the afterlife as a place where I still have moral responsibilities, just as I do in this life except that I can only exercise them before I get there. Once I get there, it'll be too late. So no god, no organized religion, but a developing sense that there's something bigger than the world we live in, including after we die, and that we have responsibilities in that world.

So whether you believe in an afterlife, as I do, or not, by being fully present in your life and in the lives of those you love, you are creating your own afterlife and writing your own eulogy. It's a valuable lesson, even more so while we have the good fortune of being healthy and having the energy and freedom and lack of impediments to create a life of purpose and meaning.

It shouldn't take a near-death experience to remind us of what we're all going to lose one day. According to Colors magazine, something called "living funeral therapy" is becoming increasingly popular in South Korea, which has the highest suicide rate of developed countries. It can involve actually getting in a coffin and having it nailed shut, to experience a glimpse of the finality and closure of death. One operator sometimes has the participants make a list of the people in their lives who matter to them. One woman said the process made her realize she'd been neglecting her husband. "I feel like I've been reborn," she said. "I want to call my husband, to tell him 'thank you,' and 'sorry.'"

It's an extreme method, and hopefully most of us won't need to be nailed shut inside a coffin to get a sense of what we really value. But the good news is that if you're reading this, there's still time to live up to the best version of your eulogy.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/are-you-living-your-eulogy-or-your-resume_b_3936937.html?utm_hp_ref=healthy-living ______________________

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 17:27:00 +0000

‘Monsanto Protection Act’ Extended as Part of House of Representatives Spending Bill

By Ashley Curtin

Nation of Change

Sept. 13, 2013

Congress extended the “Monsanto Protection Act” for an additional three months in a hush vote on Tuesday. The law, which protects Monsanto and other biotech giants from the threat of lawsuits and denies the federal courts from putting a ban on GMO sales, was a last minute addition to the House of Agriculture Appropriations Bill for 2013 and is part of the short-term FY14 Continuing Resolution Spending bill.

The law attached itself to the HR933 spending bill as a resolution to the possible government shutdown back in March. But the “Monsanto Protection Act,” which was highly controversial among its opponents, is here to stay after Republicans largely supported the three-month extension. The new expiration date of the spending bill is December 2015.

But its passage doesn’t come without much opposition. From lobbyists for the Center for Food Safety to senators, many are vocalizing their opinion against the extension and vowing to continue to fight the law.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., openly campaigned against the “Monsanto Protections Act” and in a statement in the Huffington Post said he plans to challenge the “reenactment.”

"The proposed House continuing resolution includes an extension of the Monsanto Protection Act, a secret rider slipped into a must-pass spending bill earlier this year," Merkley said. "I will fight the House's efforts to extend this special interest loophole that nullifies court orders that are protecting farmers, the environment, and public health."

The Center for Food Safety—a national nonprofit foundation organized to protect human health and the environment—said in a press release that Congress “ignored public outcry” and instead extended a serious assault on the U.S.’s fundamental judicial review.

“It is extremely disappointing to see the damaging ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ policy rider extended in the House spending bill,” Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs for Center for Food Safety, said. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans called their elected officials to voice their frustration and disappointment over the inclusion of ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ this past spring. Its inclusion is a slap in the face to the American public and our justice system.”

Another opponent of the law, March Against Monsanto, is organizing a global march in all major cities on October 12 in an effort to continue to raise public awareness and show outward disapproval of Monsanto’s “predatory Corporate farming and business practices.”

As many organizations, senators and environmental groups continue to work to rid the law from the spending bill, the Center for Food Safety is asking the public to take action by signing the petition, “Oppose the ‘Monsato Protection Act,’” and urging people to make their voices heard by contacting members of Congress and telling them to "dump the law."

This article was published at NationofChange at:
http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-protection-act-extended-part-house-representatives-spending-bill-1379081603.
All rights are reserved.
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As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 14:05:00 +0000

The Obesity Era

by David Berreby
Aeon Magazine
June 19, 2013

Years ago, after a plane trip spent reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Weight Watchers magazine, Woody Allen melded the two experiences into a single essay. ‘I am fat,’ it began. ‘I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?).’ It was 1968, when most of the world’s people were more or less ‘height-weight proportional’ and millions of the rest were starving. Weight Watchers was a new organisation for an exotic new problem. The notion that being fat could spur Russian-novel anguish was good for a laugh.

That, as we used to say during my Californian adolescence, was then. Now, 1968’s joke has become 2013’s truism. For the first time in human history, overweight people outnumber the underfed, and obesity is widespread in wealthy and poor nations alike. The diseases that obesity makes more likely — diabetes, heart ailments, strokes, kidney failure — are rising fast across the world, and the World Health Organisation predicts that they will be the leading causes of death in all countries, even the poorest, within a couple of years. What's more, the long-term illnesses of the overweight are far more expensive to treat than the infections and accidents for which modern health systems were designed. Obesity threatens individuals with long twilight years of sickness, and health-care systems with bankruptcy.

And so the authorities tell us, ever more loudly, that we are fat — disgustingly, world-threateningly fat. We must take ourselves in hand and address our weakness. After all, it’s obvious who is to blame for this frightening global blanket of lipids: it’s us, choosing over and over again, billions of times a day, to eat too much and exercise too little. What else could it be? If you’re overweight, it must be because you are not saying no to sweets and fast food and fried potatoes. It’s because you take elevators and cars and golf carts where your forebears nobly strained their thighs and calves. How could you do this to yourself, and to society?

Moral panic about the depravity of the heavy has seeped into many aspects of life, confusing even the erudite. Earlier this month, for example, the American evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller expressed the zeitgeist in this tweet: ‘Dear obese PhD applicants: if you don’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation. #truth.’ Businesses are moving to profit on the supposed weaknesses of their customers. Meanwhile, governments no longer presume that their citizens know what they are doing when they take up a menu or a shopping cart. Yesterday’s fringe notions are becoming today’s rules for living — such as New York City’s recent attempt to ban large-size cups for sugary soft drinks, or Denmark’s short-lived tax surcharge on foods that contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat, or Samoa Air’s 2013 ticket policy, in which a passenger’s fare is based on his weight because: ‘You are the master of your air ‘fair’, you decide how much (or how little) your ticket will cost.’

Several governments now sponsor jauntily named pro-exercise programmes such as Let’s Move! (US), Change4Life (UK) and actionsanté (Switzerland). Less chummy approaches are spreading, too. Since 2008, Japanese law requires companies to measure and report the waist circumference of all employees between the ages of 40 and 74 so that, among other things, anyone over the recommended girth can receive an email of admonition and advice.

Hand-in-glove with the authorities that promote self-scrutiny are the businesses that sell it, in the form of weight-loss foods, medicines, services, surgeries and new technologies. A Hong Kong company named Hapilabs offers an electronic fork that tracks how many bites you take per minute in order to prevent hasty eating: shovel food in too fast and it vibrates to alert you. A report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co predicted in May 2012 that ‘health and wellness’ would soon become a trillion-dollar global industry. ‘Obesity is expensive in terms of health-care costs,’ it said before adding, with a consultantly chuckle, ‘dealing with it is also a big, fat market.’

And so we appear to have a public consensus that excess body weight (defined as a Body Mass Index of 25 or above) and obesity (BMI of 30 or above) are consequences of individual choice. It is undoubtedly true that societies are spending vast amounts of time and money on this idea. It is also true that the masters of the universe in business and government seem attracted to it, perhaps because stern self-discipline is how many of them attained their status. What we don’t know is whether the theory is actually correct.

Higher levels of female obesity correlated with higher levels of gender inequality in each nation

Of course, that’s not the impression you will get from the admonishments of public-health agencies and wellness businesses. They are quick to assure us that ‘science says’ obesity is caused by individual choices about food and exercise. As the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, recently put it, defending his proposed ban on large cups for sugary drinks: ‘If you want to lose weight, don’t eat. This is not medicine, it’s thermodynamics. If you take in more than you use, you store it.’ (Got that? It’s not complicated medicine, it’s simple physics, the most sciencey science of all.)

Yet the scientists who study the biochemistry of fat and the epidemiologists who track weight trends are not nearly as unanimous as Bloomberg makes out. In fact, many researchers believe that personal gluttony and laziness cannot be the entire explanation for humanity’s global weight gain. Which means, of course, that they think at least some of the official focus on personal conduct is a waste of time and money. As Richard L Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and editor of the International Journal of Obesity, put it in 2005: ‘The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible.’

Consider, for example, this troublesome fact, reported in 2010 by the bio-statistician David B Allison and his co-authors at the University of Alabama in Birmingham: over the past 20 years or more, as the American people were getting fatter, so were America’s marmosets. As were laboratory macaques, chimpanzees, vervet monkeys and mice, as well as domestic dogs, domestic cats, and domestic and feral rats from both rural and urban areas. In fact, the researchers examined records on those eight species and found that average weight for every one had increased. The marmosets gained an average of nine per cent per decade. Lab mice gained about 11 per cent per decade. Chimps, for some reason, are doing especially badly: their average body weight had risen 35 per cent per decade. Allison, who had been hearing about an unexplained rise in the average weight of lab animals, was nonetheless surprised by the consistency across so many species. ‘Virtually in every population of animals we looked at, that met our criteria, there was the same upward trend,’ he told me.

It isn’t hard to imagine that people who are eating more themselves are giving more to their spoiled pets, or leaving sweeter, fattier garbage for street cats and rodents. But such results don’t explain why the weight gain is also occurring in species that human beings don’t pamper, such as animals in labs, whose diets are strictly controlled. In fact, lab animals’ lives are so precisely watched and measured that the researchers can rule out accidental human influence: records show those creatures gained weight over decades without any significant change in their diet or activities. Obviously, if animals are getting heavier along with us, it can’t just be that they’re eating more Snickers bars and driving to work most days. On the contrary, the trend suggests some widely shared cause, beyond the control of individuals, which is contributing to obesity across many species.

Such a global hidden factor (or factors) might help to explain why most people gain weight gradually, over decades, in seeming contradiction of Bloomberg’s thermodynamics. This slow increase in fat stores would suggest that they are eating only a tiny bit more each month than they use in fuel. But if that were so, as Jonathan C K Wells, professor of child nutrition at University College London, has pointed out, it would be easy to lose weight. One recent model estimated that eating a mere 30 calories a day more than you use is enough to lead to serious weight gain. Given what each person consumes in a day (1,500 to 2,000 calories in poorer nations; 2,500 to 4,000 in wealthy ones), 30 calories is a trivial amount: by my calculations, that’s just two or three peanut M&Ms. If eliminating that little from the daily diet were enough to prevent weight gain, then people should have no trouble losing a few pounds. Instead, as we know, they find it extremely hard.

Many other aspects of the worldwide weight gain are also difficult to square with the ‘it’s-just-thermodynamics’ model. In rich nations, obesity is more prevalent in people with less money, education and status. Even in some poor countries, according to a survey published last year in the International Journal of Obesity, increases in weight over time have been concentrated among the least well-off. And the extra weight is unevenly distributed among the sexes, too. In a study published in the Social Science and Medicine journal last year, Wells and his co-authors found that, in a sample that spanned 68 nations, for every two obese men there were three obese women. Moreover, the researchers found that higher levels of female obesity correlated with higher levels of gender inequality in each nation. Why, if body weight is a matter of individual decisions about what to eat, should it be affected by differences in wealth or by relations between the sexes?

Chemicals ingested on Tuesday might promote more fat retention on Wednesday

To make sense of all this, the purely thermodynamic model must appeal to complicated indirect effects. The story might go like this: being poor is stressful, and stress makes you eat, and the cheapest food available is the stuff with a lot of ‘empty calories’, therefore poorer people are fatter than the better-off. These wheels-within-wheels are required because the mantra of the thermodynamic model is that ‘a calorie is a calorie is a calorie’: who you are and what you eat are irrelevant to whether you will add fat to your frame. The badness of a ‘bad’ food such as a Cheetos is that it makes calorie intake easier than it would be with broccoli or an apple.

Yet a number of researchers have come to believe, as Wells himself wrote earlier this year in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, that ‘all calories are not equal’. The problem with diets that are heavy in meat, fat or sugar is not solely that they pack a lot of calories into food; it is that they alter the biochemistry of fat storage and fat expenditure, tilting the body’s system in favour of fat storage. Wells notes, for example, that sugar, trans-fats and alcohol have all been linked to changes in ‘insulin signalling’, which affects how the body processes carbohydrates.

This might sound like a merely technical distinction. In fact, it’s a paradigm shift: if the problem isn’t the number of calories but rather biochemical influences on the body’s fat-making and fat-storage processes, then sheer quantity of food or drink are not the all-controlling determinants of weight gain. If candy’s chemistry tilts you toward fat, then the fact that you eat it at all may be as important as the amount of it you consume.

More importantly, ‘things that alter the body’s fat metabolism’ is a much wider category than food. Sleeplessness and stress, for instance, have been linked to disturbances in the effects of leptin, the hormone that tells the brain that the body has had enough to eat. What other factors might be at work? Viruses, bacteria and industrial chemicals have all entered the sights of obesity research. So have such aspects of modern life as electric light, heat and air conditioning. All of these have been proposed, with some evidence, as direct causes of weight gain: the line of reasoning is not that stress causes you to eat more, but rather that it causes you to gain weight by directly altering the activities of your cells. If some or all of these factors are indeed contributing to the worldwide fattening trend, then the thermodynamic model is wrong.

We are, of course, surrounded by industrial chemicals. According to Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri, an organic compound called bisphenol-A (or BPA) that is used in many household plastics has the property of altering fat regulation in lab animals. And a recent study by Leonardo Trasande and colleagues at the New York University School of Medicine with a sample size of 2,838 American children and teens found that, for the majority, those with the highest levels of BPA in their urine were five times more likely to be obese than were those with the lowest levels.

BPA has been used so widely — in everything from children’s sippy cups to the aluminum in fizzy drink cans — that almost all residents of developed nations have traces of it in their pee. This is not to say that BPA is unique. In any developed or developing nation there are many compounds in the food chain that seem, at the very least, to be worth studying as possible ‘obesogens’ helping to tip the body’s metabolism towards obesity. For example, a study by the Environmental Working Group of the umbilical cords of 10 babies born in US hospitals in 2004 found 287 different industrial chemicals in their blood. Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, has proposed a long list of candidates — all chemicals that, she has written, disrupt the normal process of energy storage and use in cells. Her suspects include heavy metals in the food supply, chemicals in sunscreens, cleaning products, detergents, cosmetics and the fire retardants that infuse bedclothes and pajamas.

Chemicals and metals might promote obesity in the short term by altering the way that energy is made and stored within cells, or by changing the signals in the fat-storage process so that the body makes more fat cells, or larger fat cells. They could also affect the hormones that spur or tamp down the appetite. In other words, chemicals ingested on Tuesday might promote more fat retention on Wednesday.

It’s also possible that chemical disrupters could affect people’s body chemistry on longer timescales — starting, for instance, before their birth. Contrary to its popular image of serene imperturbability, a developing foetus is in fact acutely sensitive to the environment into which it will be born, and a key source of information about that environment is the nutrition it gets via the umbilical cord. As David J P Barker, professor of clinical epidemiology of the University of Southampton, noted some 20 years ago, where mothers have gone hungry, their offspring are at a greater risk of obesity.

The prenatal environment, Barker argued, tunes the children’s metabolism for a life of scarcity, preparing them to store fat whenever they can, to get them through periods of want. If those spells of scarcity never materialise, the child’s proneness to fat storage ceases to be an advantage. The 40,000 babies gestated during Holland’s ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944-1945 grew up to have more obesity, more diabetes and more heart trouble than their compatriots who developed without the influence of war-induced starvation.

It’s possible that widespread electrification is promoting obesity by making humans eat at night, when our ancestors were asleep

Just to double down on the complexity of the question, a number of researchers also think that industrial compounds might be affecting these signals. For example, Bruce Blumberg, professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California, Irvine, has found that pregnant mice exposed to organotins (tin-based chemical compounds that are used in a wide variety of industries) will have heavier offspring than mice in the same lab who were not so exposed. In other words, the chemicals might be changing the signal that the developing foetus uses to set its metabolism. More disturbingly, there is evidence that this ‘foetal programming’ could last more than one generation. A good predictor of your birth weight, for instance, is your mother’s weight at her birth.

Lurking behind these prime suspects, there are the fugitive possibilities — what David Allison and another band of co-authors recently called the ‘roads less travelled’ of obesity research. For example, consider the increased control civilisation gives people over the temperature of their surroundings. There is a ‘thermoneutral zone’ in which a human body can maintain its normal internal temperature without expending energy. Outside this zone, when it’s hot enough to make you sweat or cold enough to make you shiver, the body has to expend energy to maintain homeostasis.

Temperatures above and below the neutral zone have been shown to cause both humans and animals to burn fat, and hotter conditions also have an indirect effect: they make people eat less. A restaurant on a warm day whose air conditioning breaks down will see a sharp decline in sales (yes, someone did a study). Perhaps we are getting fatter in part because our heaters and air conditioners are keeping us in the thermoneutral zone.

And what about light? A study by Laura Fonken and colleagues at the Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio, published in 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reported that mice exposed to extra light (experiencing either no dark at all or a sort of semidarkness instead of total night) put on nearly 50 per cent more weight than mice fed the same diet who lived on a normal night-day cycle of alternating light and dark. This effect might be due to the constant light robbing the rodents of their natural cues about when to eat. Wild mice eat at night, but night-deprived mice might have been eating during the day, at the ‘wrong’ time physiologically. It’s possible that widespread electrification is promoting obesity by making humans eat at night, when our ancestors were asleep.

There is also the possibility that obesity could quite literally be contagious. A virus called Ad-36, known for causing eye and respiratory infections in people, also has the curious property of causing weight gain in chickens, rats, mice and monkeys. Of course, it would be unethical to test for this effect on humans, but it is now known that antibodies to the virus are found in a much higher percentage of obese people than in people of normal weight. A research review by Tomohide Yamada and colleagues at the University of Tokyo in Japan, published last year in the journal PLoS One, found that people who had been infected with Ad-36 had significantly higher BMI than those who hadn’t.

As with viruses, so with bacteria. Experiments by Lee Kaplan and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston earlier this year found that bacteria from mice that have lost weight will, when placed in other mice, apparently cause those mice to lose weight, too. And a study in humans by Ruchi Mathur and colleagues at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism earlier this year, found that those who were overweight were more likely than others to have elevated populations of a gut microorganisms called Methanobrevibacter smithii. The researchers speculated that these organisms might in fact be especially good at digesting food, yielding up more nutrients and thus contributing to weight gain.

The researcher who first posited a viral connection in 1992 — he had noticed that the chickens in India that were dead of an adenovirus infection were plump instead of gaunt — was Nikhil Dhurandhar, now a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana. He has proposed a catchy term for the spread of excess weight via bugs and viruses: ‘infectobesity’.

No one has claimed, or should claim, that any of these ‘roads less taken’ is the one true cause of obesity, to drive out the false idol of individual choice. Neither should we imagine that the existence of alternative theories means that governments can stop trying to forestall a major public-health menace. These theories are important for a different reason. Their very existence — the fact that they are plausible, with some supporting evidence and suggestions for further research — gives the lie to the notion that obesity is a closed question, on which science has pronounced its final word. It might be that every one of the ‘roads less travelled’ contributes to global obesity; it might be that some do in some places and not in others. The openness of the issue makes it clear that obesity isn’t a simple school physics experiment.

We are increasingly understanding that attributing obesity to personal responsibility is very simplistic

This is the theme of perhaps the most epic of the alternative theories of obesity, put forward by Jonathan C K Wells. As I understand his view, obesity is like poverty, or financial booms and busts, or war — a large-scale development that no one deliberately intends, but which emerges out of the millions of separate acts that together make human history. His model suggests that the best Russian novelist to invoke when thinking about obesity isn’t Dostoyevsky, with his self-punishing anguish, but Leo Tolstoy, with his vast perspective on the forces of history.

In Wells’s theory, the claim that individual choice drives worldwide weight gain is an illusion — like the illusion that individuals can captain their fates independent of history. In reality, Tolstoy wrote at the end of War and Peace (1869), we are moved by social forces we do not perceive, just as the Earth moves through space, driven by physical forces we do not feel. Such is the tenor of Wells’s explanation for modern obesity. Its root cause, he proposed last year in the American Journal of Human Biology, is nothing less than the history of capitalism.

I will paraphrase Wells’s intricate argument (the only one I’ve ever read that references both receptor pathways for leptin and data on the size of the Indian economy in the 18th century). It is a saga spanning many generations. Let's start with a poor farmer growing food crops in a poor country in Africa or Asia. In a capitalistic quest for new markets and cheap materials and labour, Europeans take control of the economy in the late 18th or early 19th century. With taxes, fees and sometimes violent repression, their new system strongly ‘encourages’ the farmer and his neighbours to stop growing their own food and start cultivating some more marketable commodity instead – coffee for export, perhaps.

Now that they aren’t growing food, the farmers must buy it. But since everyone is out to maximise profit, those who purchase the coffee crop strive to pay as little as possible, and so the farmers go hungry. Years later, when the farmer’s children go to work in factories, they confront the same logic: they too are paid as little as possible for their labour. By changing the farming system, capitalism first removes traditional protections against starvation, and then pushes many previously self-sufficient people into an economic niche where they aren't paid enough to eat well.

Eighty years later, the farmer’s descendants have risen out of the ranks of the poor and joined the fast-growing ranks of the world’s 21st-century middle-class consumers, thanks to globalisation and outsourcing. Capitalism welcomes them: these descendants are now prime targets to live the obesogenic life (the chemicals, the stress, the air conditioning, the elevators-instead-of-stairs) and to buy the kinds of foods and beverages that are ‘metabolic disturbers’.

But that’s not the worst of it. As I’ve mentioned, the human body’s response to its nutrition can last a lifetime, and even be passed on to the next generation. If you or your parents – or their parents – were undernourished, you’re more likely to become obese in a food-rich environment. Moreover, obese people, when they have children, pass on changes in metabolism that can predispose the next generation to obesity as well. Like the children of underfed people, the children of the overfed have their metabolism set in ways that tend to promote obesity. This means that a past of undernutrition, combined with a present of overnutrition, is an obesity trap.

Wells memorably calls this double-bind the ‘metabolic ghetto’, and you can’t escape it just by turning poor people into middle-class consumers: that turn to prosperity is precisely what triggers the trap. ‘Obesity,’ he writes, ‘like undernutrition, is thus fundamentally a state of malnutrition, in each case promoted by powerful profit-led manipulations of the global supply and quality of food.’

The trap is deeper than that, however. The ‘unifying logic of capitalism’, Wells continues, requires that food companies seek immediate profit and long-term success, and their optimal strategy for that involves encouraging people to choose foods that are most profitable to produce and sell — ‘both at the behavioural level, through advertising, price manipulations and restriction of choice, and at the physiological level through the enhancement of addictive properties of foods’ (by which he means those sugars and fats that make ‘metabolic disturber’ foods so habit-forming).

In short, Wells told me via email, ‘We need to understand that we have not yet grasped how to address this situation, but we are increasingly understanding that attributing obesity to personal responsibility is very simplistic.’ Rather than harping on personal responsibility so much, Wells believes, we should be looking at the global economic system, seeking to reform it so that it promotes access to nutritious food for everyone. That is, admittedly, a tall order. But the argument is worth considering, if only as a bracing critique of our individual-responsibility ideology of fatness.

What are we onlookers — non-activists, non-scientists — to make of these scientific debates? One possible response, of course, is to decide that no obesity policy is possible, because ‘science is undecided’. But this is a moron’s answer: science is never completely decided; it is always in a state of change and self-questioning, and it offers no final answers. There is never a moment in science when all doubts are gone and all questions settled, which is why ‘wait for settled science’ is an argument advanced by industries that want no interference with their status quo.

Making policy, as the British politician Wayland Young once said, is ‘the art of taking good decisions on insufficient evidence’. Faced with signs of a massive public-health crisis in the making, governments are right to seek to do something, using the best information that science can render, in the full knowledge that science will have different information to offer in 10 or 20 years.

The issue, rather, is whether the government policies and corporate business plans are in fact doing their best with the evidence they already have. Does the science justify assuming that obesity is a simple matter of individuals letting themselves eat too much? To the extent that it is, policies such as Japan’s mandatory waist-measuring and products like the Hapifork will be effective. If, on the other hand, there is more to obesity than simple thermodynamics, some of the billions spent on individual-centred policies and products may be being wasted. Time, in that case, to try some alternative policies based on alternative theories, and see how they fare.

Today’s priests of obesity prevention proclaim with confidence and authority that they have the answer. So did Bruno Bettelheim in the 1950s, when he blamed autism on mothers with cold personalities. So, for that matter, did the clerics of 18th-century Lisbon, who blamed earthquakes on people’s sinful ways. History is not kind to authorities whose mistaken dogmas cause unnecessary suffering and pointless effort, while ignoring the real causes of trouble. And the history of the obesity era has yet to be written.

Source:
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 12:02:00 +0000

How to Make Drinking Water Safer with Natural Disinfection Processes

By Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
August 23, 2012

It's estimated that half of all hospital beds in the world are occupied by people who have become sick from drinking contaminated water. In fact, over 1 billion people (or about one-sixth of the world's population) do not have access to safe drinking water, and millions in developing countries die each year from water-related diseases.¹

In third-world countries, sunlight exposure is often used to help make water safer, but this natural disinfection process can take anywhere from six to 48 hours (depending on cloud cover and so on).

Now researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have found a simple twist to make this disinfection method even more powerful, not to mention much faster …

Lime Juice and Sunlight Can Help Make Water Safer

When researchers added lime juice or lime slurry to water that had been contaminated with various types of bacteria and viruses, then exposed it to sunlight, levels of both E. coli and MS2 bacteriophage virus were significantly lower than when compared to solar disinfection alone.² Kellogg Schwab, PhD, MS, senior author of the study, said:³

"The preliminary results of this study show solar disinfection of water combined with citrus could be effective at greatly reducing E. coli levels in just 30 minutes, a treatment time on par with boiling and other household water treatment methods. In addition, the 30 milliliters of juice per 2 liters of water amounts to about one-half Persian lime per bottle, a quantity that will likely not be prohibitively expensive or create an unpleasant flavor."

Noroviruses in the drinking water were not significantly reduced using the lime juice/sunlight technique, so unfortunately it is not a perfect solution.

However, limes are readily available in most tropical countries, as is steady sunlight, so this finding could still have an extremely beneficial impact in countries that don't have ready access to clean drinking water.

You may be surprised to learn, however, that your drinking water may still be contaminated even if you live in the developed world. Further, many of the "modern" disinfection processes used in the United States and other developed countries create their own set of issues …

Have You Heard of Disinfection Byproducts?

Part of the allure of natural disinfection processes like exposure to sunlight and lime juice is that they have no harmful side effects – unlike the chlorination process used by most U.S. municipalities.

If you receive municipal water, the main chemical used to disinfect the tap water in your house is chlorine. While your local government is quick to assure you that there is relatively no danger from drinking chlorinated water, that simply is not the case, because the levels of chlorine disinfection byproducts (DBPs) that are produced by this process are both dangerous and alarming.

There is actually no safe level for many contaminants found in drinking water, including heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, hormones and DBPs, but they persist nonetheless, in varying quantities.

The government is much more concerned with providing water that doesn't kill you by causing diarrhea (the way it does in many third-world countries) and it does a good job at that, although some microorganisms (cysts and parasites) do survive the chlorination process (cryptosporidium, Giardia, for instance) and can lead to isolated outbreaks of disease and even death to those with compromised immune systems.

If you have not heard of DBPs before, you need to pay close attention as it turns out that DBPs, not chlorine, are responsible for nearly all the toxic effects of chlorinated water. Chlorine by itself is relatively harmless, but its side effects, by producing DBPs, are what cause nearly all of the problems.

As it turns out, DBPs are over 10,000 times more toxic than chlorine, and out of all the other toxins and contaminants present in your water, such as fluoride and miscellaneous pharmaceutical drugs, DBPs may be the absolute worst of the bunch.

The most common disinfectant byproducts formed when chlorine is used are:

Trihalomethanes (THMs)

Haloacetic acids (HAAs)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes the dangers of THMs -- which are measured in parts per billion (ppb) -- very seriously and regulates these compounds. The maximum annual average of THMs in your local water supply cannot exceed 80 ppb, and the maximum annual average of HAAs permitted by EPA regulations is 60 ppb.

However even though these are allowed, ideally it would be best to have zero. These levels have been regularly adjusted downwards over the years as science progresses and gains a deeper appreciation of their true toxicity. What makes DBPs so toxic?

Disinfection Byproducts May Cause Cancer, Reproductive Problems and More

THMs are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they've been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. DBPs have also been linked to reproductive problems in both animals and humans, and human studies suggest that lifetime consumption of chlorine-treated water can more than double the risk of bladder and rectal cancers in certain individuals.

One such study found that men who smoked and drank chlorinated tap water for more than 40 years faced double the risk of bladder cancer compared with smoking men who drank non-chlorinated water.⁴ A second study found that rates for rectal cancers for both sexes escalated with duration of consumption of chlorinated water.⁵ Individuals on low-fiber diets who also drank chlorinated water for over 40 years more than doubled their risk for rectal cancer, compared with lifetime drinkers of non-chlorinated water.

As the vast majority of the U.S. population continues to receive and consume disinfected or chlorinated drinking water, we can assume that Americans are consuming disinfection byproducts every single day, and the number of related cancer cases could be substantial. And, you're exposed not only when you drink chlorinated water but also, and even more significantly, when you shower or bathe, as well as when you breathe in the chemicals from the air.

The chlorine that enters your lungs is in the form of chloroform, a carcinogen, and chlorite, a byproduct of chlorine dioxide. These forms of chlorine hit your bloodstream instantly before they have a chance to be removed by your organs of detoxification. The DBPs that enter your body through your skin during showering or bathing also go directly into your bloodstream. And the warm or hot water maximizes absorption by your skin. So unless you are regularly taking one-minute long cold showers, your body is like a sponge for these airborne toxins every second you spend in a shower.

If you are like me and obtain your water from a private well, then DBPs are a non-issue as they are only produced when chlorine is added, and it's highly unusual to add chlorine to most private well water systems. However, well water has its own set of potential hazards as well.

Is Well Water Safe?

Unless you are getting your water from a well that is located 800 feet or more below the ground surface, chances are your well water has been contaminated by some if not many toxic substances that have been dumped into the ground soil over past decades. Some common toxins that are dumped by the millions of pounds into soil every year are:

Herbicides

Pesticides

Estrogen-mimicking hormones

Drug residues

Heavy metals

Many private wells in the United States have been affected by these types of chemical or heavy metal runoff from the surrounding ground soil, and this is to say nothing of the microorganisms living in well water as well. No matter how clean or pure your natural ground water looks, this has nothing to do with potential bacterial contamination or toxic pollution in the water. Many of the offenders in well water are just much too small to be seen with the naked eye.

So if your home uses well water, you really need to test to see what unwanted contaminants you're piping into your house, and then filter it accordingly. And if you get municipal water, you should have that tested too, as Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. told ABC News that there are more than 140 chemicals in U.S. drinking water supplies that are not regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).⁶ This includes gasoline, pesticides, rocket fuel, prescription drugs and more. Furthermore, more than 20 percent of U.S. water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last six years!

You Can Get Chlorine (and Other Toxins) Out of Your Drinking Water

Most people in the United States are not going to take the time to expose their drinking water and bathwater to sunlight, then add lime juice, to help make it more pure – and this wouldn't do anything to eliminate the chlorine or fluoride it contains anyway.

Fortunately, there are other options at your disposal.

If you can only afford one filter there is no question in most experts' minds that the shower filter is the most important product to buy for water filtration, even more important than filtering your tap water.

This is because the damage you incur through your skin and lungs far surpasses the damage done by drinking water (which at least gives your body a fighting chance to eliminate the toxins through your organs of elimination).

An even better solution to the problem of harsh chemicals and toxins in your home's water supply is to install a whole house water filtration system. This not only protects your body, but also your appliances as well. There's just one water line coming into your house. Putting a filter on this is the easiest and simplest strategy you can implement to take control of your health by ensuring the water and, subsequently, the air in your house is as clean as possible.

Remember, if you are getting your water from a municipal source your indoor air quality, especially in the winter when your windows are closed, is likely atrocious. This is related to the chlorine and other toxins evaporating from all your toilet bowls, showers, baths, dishwashers and washing machines.

My advice for whole house filtration systems is as follows: Find a system that uses at least 60 pounds of filter media and can produce eight or more gallons a minute. When you are running two different showers, the dishwasher and the kitchen sink at the same time, you'll find out why these minimum levels are so important. This recommendation covers a home or apartment up to 3200 sq./ft, or in other words, a residence with about three and a half bathrooms. For more than that you will probably require two whole house water filtration systems.

You also need to look for a whole house water filter that has three separate stages of contamination removal:

Stage one removes sediment

Stage two removes chlorine and heavy metals

Stage three should be a heavy-duty carbon filter for removing hormones, drug residues, chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides

You want to look for granular carbon in the carbon filter, not a solid block of carbon. The granular carbon allows for better water flow, which translates to more water pressure and better filtering properties as well.

You also want to look for NSF certification, which ensures your water filter is meeting national standards. NSF certification is only granted when a product is proven to remove everything it claims to. It's also good to makes sure all particles under .8 microns are being filtered out of the water. A lower number is actually better, but .8 microns is the standard I recommend because that covers most bacteria, viruses and VOCs.

Your body requires a constant daily supply of water to fuel all the various waste filtration systems nature has designed to keep you healthy and free of toxins. Your blood, your kidneys, and your liver all require a source of good clean water to detoxify your body from the toxic exposures you come into contact with every day.
When you give your body water that is filled with by-products from chlorination, or with volatile organic compounds, or water that is contaminated by pesticides or hormones, you are asking your body to work twice as hard at detoxification, because it must first detoxify the water you are drinking, before that water can be used to fuel your organs of detoxification! Clearly, one of the most efficient ways to help your body both avoid and eliminate toxins, and reach optimal health, is to provide it with the cleanest, purest water you can find.

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Source:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/23/natural-water-filter-system.aspx
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noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 01:09:00 +0000

Lead Gardasil developer clears conscience, admits vaccine is useless and deadly

by Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
August 15, 201

Did you know that one of the lead researchers involved with developing the two available vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil (Merck & Co.) and Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline), admitted back in 2009 that the jabs are essentially useless and more dangerous than the very conditions they are hailed as preventing and treating?

Before the vaccine industry apparently convinced her to change her story -- you can read more about the saga here -- Dr. Diane Harper, a key developer of Gardasil, is on the record as having cleared her conscience about this fraudulent vaccine, which has been shown to be both ineffective and dangerous.

One particular quote, which was pulled up using the Way Back Machine, reveals both Gardasil and Cervarix do nothing to prevent cervical cancer, which is their primary claim to fame. A 2009 article published by CBS News, in fact, which is still available online, reveals the truth about these snake oil vaccines.

"The rate of serious adverse events (from Gardasil) is on par with the death rate of cervical cancer," admitted Dr. Harper at that time, refuting a pro-Gardasil piece published by Slate. "Gardasil has been associated with at least as many serious adverse events as there are deaths from cervical cancer developing each year."

Dr. Harper went on to admit that deaths from Gardasil have been underreported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has given the illusion that the vaccine is somehow safe. Beyond this, Dr. Harper dropped a bomb when she told reporters that the public health benefit of getting vaccinated with Gardasil "is nothing," adding that the vaccine has led to "no reduction in cervical cancers."

This admission by Dr. Harper rocked the conventional medical system, which has repeatedly lied to the public with claims that getting vaccinated for HPV will prevent the most common forms of cervical cancer. Because of these lies, literally millions of young girls and now boys, some as young as nine years old, have received the deadly jab since it was first introduced back in 2006.

Beyond this, Dr. Harper is on the record as having told attendees of the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination back in 2009 that the vast majority of HPV infections resolve themselves on their own within a year, and nearly all of them within two years. She also admitted that an extremely small number of people experience symptoms from infection.

Dr. Harper suddenly retracts statements, claims they were made up

But not long after clearing her conscience on this important issue so that she could sleep at night, Dr. Harper basically retracted all of her statements, claiming that media reports citing them were made up. What? The vaccine industry or some other power apparently got to Dr. Harper and convinced her to change her story -- either that or she is schizophrenic.

In any case, the truth about Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix has been revealed, and still nothing has been done to pull the vaccine from the market.

States like California and Michigan are actually administering these two vaccines to some children without parental consent, and many other states are "mandating" it for students who enroll in public school.

Meanwhile, there are many natural, homeopathic-based remedies that actually work to prevent diseases like HPV that are being ignored by the medical system.

To learn more about the dangers of HPV vaccines, be sure to check out SaneVax, Inc.:
http://sanevax.org/

You can also keep up-to-date with vaccine news you are likely not hearing about from the mainstream media by visiting:
http://vactruth.com/

Source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/041644_Gardasil_vaccination_scam_HPV_vaccine.html
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