Skeptical Healthcare Consumer

Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

2013-12-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

Another brilliant video from John Green . . .

Green discusses the complicated reasons why the United States spends so much more on health care than any other country in the world. Who's at fault? Insurance companies? Drug companies? Malpractice lawyers? Hospitals? Or is it more complicated than a simple blame game?

Good stuff! Thought-provoking.

Do You Eat Silly Putty?

2013-12-18T05:34:00.001-07:00

Amazing--and scary--what we put in our bodies. Here's a nice, quick introduction to the topic:

I didn't know that!

Perhaps, once we know, we won't completely stop insulting our bodies with these kinds of ingredients. But maybe we will slow down with our ingestion of such things. And maybe we can tell the suppliers exactly why we are reducing our consumption of their products.

But it's not just fast food at our favorite burger joints that cause problems. Look what Vani ("Foodbabe") finds in a typical kitchen pantry (you can get to the point somewhat faster by starting at 0:43):

Protect your body from your Laptop!

2013-12-02T07:27:00.001-07:00

I've become increasingly concerned about EMR (ElectroMagnetic Radiation).

If high use of cell phones can cause cancer (see here and here, as well as the cautious (i.e., "not definitively proven, but may be the case") Mayo Clinic report), . . . and, ignoring the potential cancer connection, let's look at fertility issues related to laptops: is there something that those of us who use laptops or tablets on a consistent basis can do?

Here's a proposed "solution":

If you're interested, the best prices seem to be available directly from HARApad.

Getting Dental Work Done

2012-10-31T07:43:00.001-06:00

Sarita and I went to a specialized dentist, Dr. C, last week. We went primarily in order to have our “silver” (i.e., 50%+ mercury) amalgam fillings taken out in a safe manner. And, related to the matter of having the "silver" out, we went to Dr. C because she is well aware of the dangers and takes appropriate precautions. (So, for example, besides placing special dams and cloth coverings for our basic protection from solid amalgam chips and dust that might [or absolutely will] fly from a drill site, Dr. C also hooked us up to oxygen and, I am told, hooks herself up to oxygen and runs some kind of special vacuum system (attached to her drills?; I was asleep, so didn't ask too many questions!) to suck up as much mercury vapor as possible as she is working with the stuff she removes from her patients’ mouths. . . .

But why would we want the "silver" out of our mouths?

Primarily because we want our bodies--and particularly mine, with its autoimmune problems--to have every advantage possible in fighting disease on their own.

But, says the ADA (American Dental Association), mercury amalgams have "been proven safe, affordable and durable" for over 180 years.

I beg to differ. And here are my reasons why. First, a story from while we were with Dr. C:

As we were eating lunch together with our dentist and her staff on Monday, we also sat with another dentist, Dr. B, a 20-year professional acquaintance of the doctor for whose services we had come. Just two weeks before, Dr. B had decided he wanted to join Dr. C in her practice. Dr. B has none of the background in nor long-term concern about the toxicological issues related to dentistry that Dr. C has.

One of the subjects that came up during our discussion: Why is dentistry one of the most suicide-professions in the world? (Actually, I have been told, and Dr. C assured us it is true, that dentistry is the most suicide-prone profession. But whether it is absolutely #1 or not, one must still wonder.) Why wouldn't we see more psychiatrists, for example, or emergency room doctors--professionals dealing with far more extreme and upsetting and high-pressure circumstances: Why wouldn't we see them committing suicide more often than dentists?

Dr. C’s suggested answer: Because of mercury.

She said, “I have never been in the presence of so many depressed people as when I have gone to ADA meetings.”

She also commented on the frequency with which she has dealt with dentists who are showing Parkinson’s Disease-like symptoms: major shakes/tremors . . . and they aren't “even” that old.

Why is that?

She suggested all of these results are related to the dentists’ continual exposure to mercury.

Of course, I have merely told you an anecdote about anecdotal/circumstantial evidence. For more scientifically-based reasons for concern and descriptions of specific risks of mercury related to dental amalgams, see this paper (PDF) by the IAOMT (International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology), a dental industry group committed to seeing the repudiation of mercury amalgams in dentistry.)

Since our previous dentists really haven't cared one way or another about mercury, besides having our obvious amalgam fillings removed, we also went to have our crowns checked: did the previous dentists, by any chance, actually leave mercury amalgam under the crowns? (As it turned out, one of Sarita’s crowns was actually placed on top of an amalgam filling . . . and there was significant decay surrounding and under the filling under the crown . . . all of which decay and filling was completely undetectable to any x-ray because the porcelain crown was on a metal substrate!)

For me, we also went to have a root-canaled (and amalgam-filled-through-a-gold-crowned) tooth removed ("extracted"). I was (and am) planning to have an implant put in the now-missing tooth’s place.

Why have a root-canaled tooth removed? Quick answer: because, as Robert Kulacz, DDS, and Thomas E Levy, MD, JD, note in The Roots of Disease: Connecting Dentistry & Medicine: there are millions of dentin tubules inside every tooth (three miles of such tubules inside the smallest tooth), into which toxins from the nerve-canal space can go and hide. This has been shown by the electron-microscope. One of the common effects of root canals is to cut these tubules off from the cleansing action of the tooth nerve and tooth lymph systems. As a result, the tubules become little fermentation chambers that expel toxic material into the body through microscopic channels in the tooth or between the inner layer of the tooth and the inner gutta percha root canal material . . . which can then cause enormous problems in other parts of the body. Indeed, they suggest, this kind of infectious/toxic material is at the root of many cardiac problems and, even, deaths.

Of course, infections and toxic material seepage is not an absolute foregone conclusion as a result of root canals. But it is exceptionally common.

By the way: In case you are possibly facing a root canal, or are being urged to get a root canal, there are alternatives. See, for example, this page. Or look up root canal alternative on Google.

Virtually no “regular” dentists--and, certainly, no endodontists (who specialize in root canals)--will mention the idea that you could possibly heal your tooth. But, I am told, it is possible.

If you can't heal the tooth, some dentists--like Drs. Kulacz and Levy, or Dr. John Augspurger (whose brief article about healing a tooth I just referenced)--will urge you “simply” to get the tooth removed, as I had done. Better an extraction than all the complications and problems associated with infected, toxin-producing root-canaled teeth.

HOWEVER,

I urge you to look at Dr. Michael C. Goldman’s bracing article about Root Canal Treatment Choices. Interestingly, though definitely very aware of and concerned about the issues Kulacz, Levy and Augspurger (among many others) raise, Goldman suggests specific means by which dentists can do effective root canals. And he suggests reasons why one might want to go ahead with a root canal and how to avoid the (potential) problems the others talk about. I think this article has some very valuable things to say and includes comments about possible treatment modes you may want to discuss with your dentist or endodontist! Are they really proposing the best treatment protocols?

Prior to going to her office--actually, quite a while ago, September 19th, to be exact--Dr. C had Sarita and me have blood samples taken and sent to Clifford Consulting & Research of Colorado Springs. Clifford, then, did some assays on our blood by which they were able to test our bodies’ reactivity to well over 12,000 brand-name dental products and supplies—from cements, adhesives and bonding materials, to liners, sealants, etchant materials, pastes, varnishes, desensitizing agents, varnishes, porcelains, ceramics. . . .

You'd think, “What’s the big deal?” Well . . .

Though we didn't know what they were made of, specifically, once they were removed, all of my crowns--both the “gold” crowns (I put the word in quotes because gold is only one of the materials in a gold crown, of course; gold is too soft to create a tooth replacement that has to withstand 200# or more of pressure) as well as the “porcelain” or “ceramic” crowns (lined with metal)--. . . all of my crowns were made of materials that were obviously (by visual inspection) highly reactive to my body. (How could we tell? The metal linings had turned black with some kind of--I'll call it--“growth.” You might compare it to oxidation (rust). But it looked more like a very thin, but completely black, film like the sludge that grows up on the inside of the downpipe of a bathroom sink--if you've ever cleaned out a plugged-up bathroom sink downpipe.)

Sarita’s crowns and teeth were much the same.

Beyond that,

The teeth themselves--both mine and Sarita’s--had begun to rot away beneath the crowns. . . .

In fact, as it turns out,

According to Clifford, my body can hardly stand any of the standard dental metal materials. . . . (Dr. C gave both Sarita and me copies of our Clifford reports. Pretty amazing results.)
As a result of the Clifford testing, we (Dr. C and we) knew what materials we could--and, more importantly, couldn't--use in the reconstruction process. I can tell you: there will be no ceramic- or porcelain-covered metal crowns in my mouth! Nor for Sarita.

Guess what? My root-canaled tooth was removed and there was massive infection in the underlying bone . . . all of which rotten bone Dr. C had to remove.

Oh. And since the roots of the tooth actually went up right next to or into my sinus, I now have a hole from my mouth, through the socket area, up into my sinus cavity.

Dr. C had planned for that (not only for a possible hole up into the sinus, but, "simply," for the hole that would be left by the extraction, by harvesting three growth factors from my own blood (she had a phlebotomist on her staff take my blood before doing the extraction, then spun the blood to separate the growth factors) and combining those growth factors with bone granules to aid healing in the extraction site.

. . . --Some of my experiences with the dental world in the last couple of weeks!

I have a couple of weeks of healing, yet, then Sarita and I return for permanent crowns to replace the crowns we had removed. I, then, am scheduled to return sometime in January to have an implant post placed into my jaw at the extraction site and, then, finally, three months from then, have the implant crown itself placed on the abutment.

I'll probably report on that in due time.

GM crops: Once you've bitten the apple, can you spit it out again? Or are you hooked?

2012-04-22T11:12:00.000-06:00

Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer, has been farming in Cornwall, England, for nearly 30 years.

In this short documentary, he investigates the impact on farmers [forget the health risks for consumers!] of farming genetically modified crops in the United States. We've had 10 years, now, farm users have been able to see what is happening. What do the U.S. farmers have to say? Should Europe permit GM crops in Europe?

Slightly less than 24 minutes:

Cannabis as a broad-spectrum, multi-function anti-inflammatory

2012-01-09T06:44:00.001-07:00

The information in the following video, presented in calm, clinical precision, "makes sense" and is also maddening. Because a plant can be used foolishly, therefore our government (and, apparently, many (?? most?? all??) national governments worldwide) has banned the use of cannabis pretty much across-the-board.

Except . . . Wait a second!

Donald I Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology and Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco (0:47): "If cannabis were discovered in an Amazon rain forest today, people would be clamoring to make as much use as they could of all of the potential benefits of the plant."

Says Dr. William L. Courtney, MD, a dietary raw cannabis specialist (1:20): "Cannabis is a vegetable. It's not psychoactive until humans alter it chemically." (1:43) "It's a dietary essential that helps all 210 cell types function more effectively. And so I don't even refer to it as medicine anymore. It's strictly as a dietary essential. . . . In its best form, it's a preventative. Preventing diabetes is a lot better than treating it. Preventing cancer is a lot better than trying to treat it."

Back to Abrams (2:16): "I think cannabis is a medicine. It is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and probably has some direct activity against cancer cells."

The United States Department of Health and Human Services, itself, has acquired a patent on "Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants." (See the document at visible/readable size at 2:23.)

Dr. Courtney comments (11:26): "Clearly, we can't have a patent on its utility and say it has no utility. . . . [Such a claim is] patently absurd." --And yet that is exactly what our government wants to claim so as to paint any promoters of cannabis as "beyond the pale."

I don't want to quote the entire video. Dr. Courtney makes a tremendous case of appropriate use of the plant (2:42): "The majority of my patients don't want to get high at 8 o'clock in the morning and be high all day long. But a lot of them do have arthritis, car accidents, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid, and they start out their day in pain and they're in pain most of the day. And so they're looking for relief but clarity." --I thought: "What a perfect summary! 'Relief but clarity.'"

So how does Courtney recommend one achieve this goal? "Eating the plant raw." (3:02) Or, actually, juicing it. --And there is an amazing discussion and on-screen "demonstration" of exactly how that is done . . . and how not to do it.

Perhaps the most astonishing segments of the video are those of Kristen Peskuski, a young woman who suffered (or, without cannabis, still suffers) what I am beginning to recognize as the "standard" range of autoimmune diseases: lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (since the age of 16), hypothyroidism, chronic infections, and asthma. Not to mention interstitial cystitis, endometriosis, cervical cancer . . . (Her list of ailments goes on. But you get the idea.)

She was bed-ridden, on over 40 medications (including such wonders as Prednisone and Methotrexate), told she was sterile and would never be able to have children . . . And now, she says, she is healthy, happy, has a baby daughter (and, apparently, at least one other child; she speaks directly of her daughter, the result of "being pregnant for the first time"), is off of all the drugs . . .

And the source of all of these miracles?

Cannabis, she says. Juiced.

Be skeptical. But watch--or listen--to her testimony. What is it about how she presents her story that, somehow, overcomes my doubts and says, "No. She is telling the truth . . . and I believe her evaluation of the source of her healing is accurate . . . even if her 'one story' isn't clinical proof"?

Unbelievable! . . . Or, actually, very believable. Check it out for yourself:

Vitamin B12 - From illegal substance to "hero"

2011-12-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

I received this email from Dr. Jonathan V. Wright's Nutrition and Healing Health e-Tips on Thursday morning:

One frightening morning in 1991, Dr. Wright's Tahoma Clinic was violently raided. Two dozen heavily armed thugs blew past the patient peacefully waiting in her wheelchair and kicked down the door.

In a nightmare scenario straight out of an action movie, clinic staff members were held at gunpoint for two hours before being ejected from the building. The gang then went on to destroy medical equipment and ransack the clinic.

These thugs weren't criminals getting their kicks. The situation was far worse. They were sent by the FDA to harass Dr. Wright, all because he was giving his patients access to...not illegal drugs, not phony prescriptions. Oh no--his clinic was attacked because he was prescribing preservative-free B vitamins!

Now, twenty years later, the mainstream press is breathlessly celebrating the very substance that was the target of the 1991 raid!

Unbelievable? Well...probably not. I mean, we are talking about the FDA here.

Late last month, The New York Times broke the story that vitamin B12--one of those very vitamins that was at the root of Dr. Wright's receptionist having a gun put to her face--is good for your brain. Imagine that!

In the article, they detail the story of a woman who, at the age of 85, started becoming more and more confused. She was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease, and was prescribed Aricept. Her daughter says the drug made things worse, and no wonder--Aricept's (donepezil) potential side effects include depression, nervousness, changes in behavior, and...confusion (yeah, that's a head-scratcher for me, too).

Thankfully, someone thought to test her B12 levels. They found they were quite low, and her doctor started her on weekly injections. Her daughter was thrilled at how quickly her mother's condition started improving. But she had to wonder--why aren't B12 levels checked more regularly?

Excellent question! I'm sure the answer has nothing to do with Aricept being a cash cow and B12 being a lowly vitamin that isn't covered in dollar signs. No, nothing at all.

As we age, our bodies just can't absorb B12 from food as effectively as they once could. And the symptoms of B12 deficiency can easily be misdiagnosed or written off as a normal part of aging (muscle weakness, incontinence, low blood pressure, cognitive problems, and so on).

This is far from the first time I've told you about the cognitive protection offered by B-vitamins. But we certainly haven't seen such coverage in the mainstream--and of course they're acting like it's a breakthrough discovery--despite the fact that, 20 years ago, it was all pitchforks and torches for a doctor who dared prescribe B to his patients. Sheesh.

Of course, it's nice to see people spreading the word about potent natural healers, but the fact that it took so long for such a powerful vitamin to get some recognition makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

I mean, just imagine how many more people could have put the brakes on their cognitive decline without the dangerous side effects of "miracle" drugs if the mainstream would have been just a little more open to what Nature has to offer.

Instead, we've been handed dangerous drugs--or the excuse that memory loss is just a sad fact of aging--for years. Meanwhile, doctors who know the truth about Nature's healers--doctors like our own Dr. Wright--are forced into nightmarish scenarios that put their livelihood, and perhaps even their very lives, at risk.

It's not too late to harness the power of B12 and the other B-vitamins. Injections are often the best way to correct a B12 deficiency. Dr. Wright has also recommended taking a good quality "B- complex 50" or "B-complex 100" supplement (which also includes B12 in addition to the other important members of the "B" family) each day. Of course, before starting any vitamin or supplement regimen, you should consult a doctor skilled in natural medicine.

Yours in good health,

Christine O'Brien

P.S. Vitamin B12 is just one of the many natural secrets to living younger. Become one of the few "in the know," and you'll be on the fast track to looking, thinking, and feeling better than you have in YEARS. Click here to learn more.

Healthcare freedom?

2011-12-15T04:49:00.001-07:00

What would you do if "they" came knocking on your door early in the morning because, "they" say, you are guilty of child neglect because you (and your son) refuse to put him through more cancer treatments of "their" preference after your son is found cancer-free?

Indeed, what would you do if this all happened because you disagreed with the doctor who had been treating your son when he demanded that you put your son under this kind of care:

treatments of Ifosfamide, Etoposide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine and Anorexialt. NONE of which have been FDA approved for use in children or even for the use of [your son's] diagnosed condition. [And some of which] have . . . been shown to cause other forms of cancers.

Some other side effects of these drugs are:
-Damage to the cranial motor nerves
-Serious infections
-Failure of boys to sexually mature
-The inability to father children

Yep. Real story. Real parents. Real 9- (now 10-) year-old boy. Real lawsuit. And real pain.

Jacob Stieler was diagnosed with cancer back in March of this year. After undergoing surgery and chemo treatments, he and his parents were dumfounded and thrilled to discover there were no signs of cancer in July. All his scans came back clear. His blood counts were good. . . .

July 1:

Thursday we have to head back to Grand Rapids for Jacob to get his counts checked and Friday, we have to go back to Grand Rapids again for Jacob’s MRI and Bone Scan. Very busy week! And lots of driving. Not my favorite thing to do, but it will be nice to get the tests done and see where Jacob’s at.

Please be praying for Jacob’s tests next week. Pray that his counts will be higher on Sunday so he won’t have to have another transfusion.

July 6:

Jacob had his counts checked Sunday morning. They were great! Praise God! That meant that he didn’t have to have his Neupogen shots for the rest of the week. He was so happy about that. He did really good all day, but around dinner time, he had a melt-down. I don’t know what happened, but he was not happy. He told me he wished he could fall asleep and never wake up. Boy, that is so hard to hear! I know he’s had those moments a few times already, and I can’t blame him, but it breaks my heart. I think he was just drained from a day at the beach. I’m always wiped out myself the day after too. Anyway, he woke up Monday morning and had done a 180. He was back to his old silly self.

July 7:

JACOB’S PET SCAN CAME BACK CLEAR!!!!!!!

And then July 11:

We’ll be leaving out of state for treatment for a month or so. It’ll be so nice to be back after that. Just that much sweeter! Please continue to pray for Jacob. Even though his test came back clear, I know that doesn’t mean he’s in the clear. This will mean a lifestyle change and we’re all willing to do it, especially if that means everyone is healthy in our home. :) We’re so thankful for all of your prayers. I know that helped tremendously!!!! :)

--Uh-oh!

Did you catch that?

"We’ll be leaving out of state for treatment for a month or so"? What's that all about? Oh. Not to mention her constant reference to prayers and God.

Obviously a weirdo. How dare she think she knows more than the doctors who are committed to cutting, burning and poisoning? Lifestyle changes? Is she crazy?

SO . . .

July 18:

Well, this has been the craziest week!

Wednesday [that would be July 13--JAH], I got a phone call from the social worker at the hospital where Jacob has been.

She informed me since we are refusing radiation for Jacob, they would be filing a petition for court. I was in shock! Well, not totally. In shock for the fact that my son [is] CANCER-FREE!!!

Anyway, Friday morning comes and I am woke up by the sound of Child Protective Services knocking on our door.

I was disgusted to find out that the hospital lied and said that he would have a 0% chance of survival if he didn’t follow through with it (that number was NEVER given to me). Second, they with-held the fact that his PET Scan came back clear and he is, in fact, cancer-free. I am disgusted by the fact that they were deceitful.

What happened to parent’s rights? We are not being foolish [in] not taking further action with Jacob. We are taking him to a place to build up his immune system, get some healthy weight back on his bones and he will have multiple therapies to heal his worn body.

The fact that they want to give him almost 2 months of radiation plus 6 months more of chemo – both of which cause cancer – when no cancer is present, is completely shocking!

Please be praying for all of us! Jacob is scared and worried! He already told me that if they make him do chemo and radiation, that he will kill himself!

So, suddenly, the Stielers are no longer looking at a "mere" medical problem; now they must deal with legal problems as well? Because they have come to the conclusion that there may be better means of dealing with cancer (like "lifestyle changes") than the treatments that the allopaths prefer?

On October 14, Mrs. Stieler wrote,

Yesterday we went to court again. . . . There is now an actual trial set for the first week of December. There will be a jury. This trial is for two things.

First, they are still pushing to have Jacob have 6 more months of chemotherapy and 2 months of radiation. Two of the chemotherapy drugs that he was on and would be on are mustard gas – yes, chemical warfare.

Another one is nicknamed “red death” and can potentially cause major heart damage.

Another has chloroform in it and the other two are just as capable of causing cancer.

Yes, it’s all POISON! And I’m sure most of you know how horrible radiation is.

Oh, and did I forget to mention again that Jacob is CANCER-FREE!!!! Yes, he had another PET Scan a few weeks ago and still NO CANCER! They truly believe that poisoning my child is the best thing for his health.

It doesn’t matter that we have doctors currently keeping an eye on him.

It doesn’t matter that he’s had a lifestyle change and we’re doing multiple things to keep him healthy.

It doesn’t matter that we’re going to keep getting PET Scans done every 3 months.

It doesn’t matter that we would certainly get him into treatment the moment one of those scans came up showing cancer. They’re not happy with that answer.

And in the very next sentence she begins speculating about why her [former?] doctors and/or the hospital . . . and definitely the state are coming after them: "Is it because they’re not getting their $60,000 a month? And that’s not counting radiation."

And then . . .

Another reason for this whole trial is the fact that they’re trying to set an example with us – to not question the doctors or the state, for that matter. We’re all just basically “foster-parents” to our children. The state actually owns them and they have a right to decide what’s best for our kids. We, as parents, do not! I hope you are all as outraged at this as we are!!!

What happened to our rights?? . . . Doesn’t the 14th amendment mean anything?? . . . We need to stand up for our rights as parents . . . that we should ultimately have the right to decide what’s best. Not some strangers who don’t know a thing about our children or us for that matter.

And so, I wondered, what has happened? We're well past the first week of December. . . .

Oh.

November 29:

Our trial date has been changed to January 10-13, 2012. It’s a long story and frankly quite ridiculous, but I probably shouldn’t get into that here. Let’s just say, the other side asked for it. [Not sure what the "it" is to which she is referring--the original trial? The postponement? Perhaps both. --JAH] I know that there is good and bad that comes with it, but we really just wanted to be done with it for Christmas. Not to mention that people, including my husband, took time off of work to be there or to testify. It’s really quite maddening!

And Mrs. Stieler's latest update (12/10/11):

I never got back to you all after the motions hearing on November 30th. I guess I didn’t take the time because there was nothing to report. They were supposed to go over some of the motions that were filed, but the “other side” wasn’t prepared.

It's getting quite ridiculous! They’ve been investigating us since July. Filed the petition in September and THEY’RE not ready?

Oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the reasons that the trial was asked to be moved to January is because “it’s not fair” that it was 2 against 1. As in Ken and I having 2 lawyers to their one.

Pathetic!

Someone has initiated a petition drive to ask the governor of Michigan to drop the lawsuit against the Stielers. You can find that here.

. . . And I am left wondering once more about how "free" we are, yet, here in the "land of the free." . . .

Sitting is deadly . . .

2011-12-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Mike Hyatt alerted me to this.

via

I am still trying to figure out how to overcome the need to sit in order to work on my computer.

Hyatt mentions his stand-up desk.

Too bad it has a sloped top. You can't place four computer screens (as I use) on a sloping surface.

However, the manufacturer makes flat-top stand-up desks as well. . . .

Make sure you distinguish your D's!

2011-11-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

From Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Drisdol and Calcitriol are synthetic forms of vitamin D2; the form of vitamin D typically prescribed by doctors.

But this is not the type produced by your body in response to sun or safe tanning bed exposure.

A recent meta-analysis by the Cochrane Database looked at mortality rates for people who supplemented their diets with D2 versus those who did so with D3, the form naturally produced by your body.

The analysis of 50 randomized controlled trials, which included a total of 94,000 participants, showed:

A six percent relative risk reduction among those who used vitamin D3, but

A two percent relative risk increase among those who used D2
In an article posted on Live in the Now, Dr. John J. Cannell writes:

"Amazingly, this study somehow slipped under the radar...

You would think a paper that took a look at tens of thousands of subjects and analyzed the efficacy of prescription vitamin D (D2) and over-the-counter vitamin D (D3) would warrant a news story or two.

To my knowledge, these papers are the first to paint such a clear picture about the efficacy between D3 and D2."
The Two Types of Vitamin D

Supplemental vitamin D comes in two forms:

Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2)

Cholecalciferol (vitamin D3)
They have long been regarded as equivalent and interchangeable, especially since a recognized vitamin D expert, Dr. Michael Hollick, recommended it. But that notion was based on studies of rickets prevention in infants conducted several decades ago. Today, we know a lot more about vitamin D, and the featured study offers compelling support for the recommendation to take vitamin D3 if you need to take an oral supplement—which is the same type of D vitamin created in your body when you expose your skin to sunlight.

According to the latest research, D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. Regardless of which form you use, your body must convert it into a more active form, and vitamin D3 is converted 500 percent faster than vitamin D2. Vitamin D2 also has a shorter shelf life, and its metabolites bind poorly with proteins, further hampering its effectiveness.

Unfortunately, vitamin D2—which is a synthetic version made by irradiating fungus and plant matter—is the form of vitamin D most often prescribed by doctors in the U.S. Hopefully this will change sooner rather than later.

As stated by Dr. Cannell in the featured article:

"While there may be explanations for D3's superiority other than improved efficacy, for the time being, these papers send doctors a message: use D3, not D2."

By the way, Mercola shares a lot more good information on the referenced page about vitamin D and its uses.

New hype over flu shots doesn't match reality

2011-11-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

Dr. Douglass has got to be kidding. Or maybe not. Check it out for yourself. From this morning's Daily Dose:

It's that time of year again... and no, I'm not talking about the approaching holidays.

It's the time of year when they'll say just about anything, no matter how absurd, to get more patients to roll up their sleeves for a flu shot -- like the claim from a new study that supposedly finds the vaccine is "60 percent effective" at preventing the flu.

Makes it sound like 60 percent of the people who get the shot are protected from the flu, right?

That sounded a little on the high side to me -- like around 60 percent too high -- so I dug a little deeper. Sure enough, the study actually proves what I've been saying all along: Statistically speaking, the shot protects practically no one.

In fact, the data from 31 studies published over the past 44 years finds that pretty much no one even gets the flu in the first place.

An exaggeration? Maybe -- but not by much, because despite the media's annual flu-shot frenzy, the study finds that it's simply a non-event: Just 2.7 percent of the unvaccinated and 1.2 percent of those who do get the shot come down with the disease in any given year.

On paper, that's a difference of 60 percent, but the ABSOLUTE reduction in risk isn't even close to 60 percent -- it's a measly 1.5 percent.

Whoop-de-doo... and believe it or not, even that number is a little on the high side, because other studies haven't been nearly as generous.

One analysis released earlier this year found no evidence the shot reduced the rate of hospitalization or slowed the spread of the disease. That study even found that the little evidence FOR flu shots came from studies that were rigged by vaccine makers.

But while the benefits may be nonexistent, the potential risks are all too real: Flu shots have been linked to fatigue, pain, nerve damage, seizures, paralysis and even death.

The bottom line here is you can do everything wrong and still not get the flu -- but if you want to slash your odds even further, don't waste your time with a vaccine.

Work on good hygiene and a strong immune system instead.

Dr. Douglass offers no references for his claims. Let me give you links via Dr. Joseph Mercola and others:

Regular Flu Vaccine Actually INCREASES Risk of Swine Flu
"Everyone knows vaccines are based on solid science"--or might there be some conflicts of interest? (Ummmm. Yes!)
Australia actually BANS the flu vaccine for children under five. Why?
Flu Vaccine Likely Does Not Prevent the Flu, nor Protect Against the Vast Majority of Flu-Related Deaths
Is Vitamin D deficiency the real cause of flue?
And a more nuanced view?

Should we trust our restaurants to provide us safe food?

2011-11-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Our bodies are probably a whole lot more resilient (and resistant to disease) than most of us are willing to give them credit for.

Just yesterday I read an article that referenced some of the results of poor hygiene practices engaged in (or, rather, hygiene practices not engaged in) by many employees at different fast food joints.

It didn't discuss any of the rather startling chemical ingredients added to so many of the even supposedly "healthy" foods available at Americans' favorite restaurants.

It didn't reference the lousy--I mean, truly horrific--feed practices followed by the CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feed[ing] Operations; often likened to the inhumane and horrifying Nazi concentration/death camps of the 1930s and early '40s) that supply most of the meat used in the restaurants we frequent. I mean, were you aware that a Pfizer Pharmaceuticals subsidiary has been including arsenic--a known carcinogen--in its chicken feed for years? (How did they justify this adulteration? On the grounds that the arsenic never found its way into the human food chain because the chickens pooped it out before it became incorporated within their meat. Of course, now they tell us that, "Oh! Sorry about that! Hmmmm. I guess it is in the chicken meat, after all!" . . . Oh. . . . Except . . . now wait a second! Where did all that chicken poop go? . . . No! You've got to be kidding me! . . . Nope. The majority of the chicken litter went into cow feed. . . . So did the FDA really think we were being protected from Pfizer's arsenic-laced chicken feed after all?)

But this morning, I came across another article about how the FDA refuses to promote health with respect to the ubiquitous use of antibiotics in animal feed. Such enforcement would be "too expensive and resource intensive," you see. It took them 12 1/2 years finally, to respond to a citizen petition seeking rescension of the FDA's approval of subtherapeutic uses of antibiotics in livestock feed.

The response to petitioners says,

Although we share your concern about the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals for growth promotion and feed efficiency indications (i.e., production uses), . . . FDA is denying your petition.

Why? Two reasons (and, of course, remember that it has taken the FDA 12 1/2 years to come to this conclusion!):

"[B]ecause there is a formal evidentiary process that must be followed before new animal drug approvals may be withdrawn. In order to withdraw a new animal drug’s approval, FDA must follow a number of statutory requirements, such as providing the sponsor of the new animal drug with notice that the Agency proposes to withdraw approval of the drug and an opportunity for a formal evidentiary hearing on the matter. FDA cannot withdraw approval of a new animal drug until the legally-mandated process is complete. . . .

"FDA must provide the drug’s sponsor with notice and an opportunity for a formal administrative hearing ("NOOH").

"Because no hearings have been held with respect to the animal drugs at issue in the Citizen Petition, and because the Commissioner has not made any final determination about whether grounds for withdrawal under section 5 12(e) of the FD&C Act have been satisfied, the relief requested in the Citizen Petition cannot be granted at this time."
"Recognizing that the process of reviewing safety information for antimicrobial drugs approved before 2003, and pursuing withdrawal proceedings in some cases, would take many years and would impose significant resource demands on the Agency, in June 2010, FDA proposed a different strategy to promote the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals in a draft guidance entitled, 'The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals' draft Guidance for Industry #209 ('draft GFT 9209'). . . .

"Draft GFI #209 proposes two principles aimed at ensuring the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals. The first principle set out in the draft guidance is that the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in foodproducing animals should be limited to those uses that are considered necessary for assuring animal health. As set out in the draft guidance, FDA does not consider production uses of such drugs to be necessary for assuring animal health. . . . [I.e., "We agree that the use of these antibiotics is not necessary for assuring animal health. So these drugs really ought not to be used for promoting growth. But . . ." --JAH] The second principle set out in the draft guidance is that the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals should be limited to those uses that include veterinary oversight or consultation. This principle speaks to the need for the scientific and clinical training of licensed veterinarians in assuring that medically important antimicrobials are used in a judicious manner. . . . [So, again, "We agree with you. However . . ." --JAH]

"Based on feedback this Agency has received following the issuance of draft GFI #209, FDA believes that the animal pharmaceutical industry is generally responsive to the prospect of working cooperatively with the Agency to implement the principles recommended in draft GFI #209. FDA intends to work with sponsors who approach FDA and are interested in working cooperatively with the Agency to phase out production uses of medically important antimicrobials and to transition medically important antimicrobials currently approved for over-the-counter use in food-producing animals to a marketing status that involves veterinary oversight."

Really? The pharmaceutical industry is "generally responsive" to the prospect of phasing out the use of this huge source of revenue because it is concerned for the health of human beings? When the FDA itself, in 1977, found that adding antibiotics to animal feed undeniably causes antibiotic resistance? Is Big Pharma any more interested in human health than Big Tobacco?

Somehow, I doubt it!

(By the way, if you want a virtually identical response--only six and a half years in the making--to a virtually identical petition, you can find it here.)

But getting back to the original point of this post: Sadly, there are precious few restaurants to which you can go where they will feed you all-natural, truly open-range, grass-fed, grass-finished meats.

And I will confess that I haven't yet weaned myself from my favorite hamburgers at certain hamburger joints. But the more I learn about our food, the more I am moving toward that kind of lifestyle. Who wants to be filling their bodies with the kind of junk the FDA, Big Pharma, and Industrial Agriculture want to push upon us?

PS: For the original news release on the FDA decision, please see PR Newsline's FDA Denies Citizen Petitions on Animal Antibiotics.

Federal government to extinguish naturopathic remedies?

2011-11-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

This story has been brewing for weeks, now. No, actually, for months. But I didn't want to sound the alarm too quickly. And, honestly, I haven't been able to work my way through the proposed FDA "guidance" to form my own opinion about just how problematic the proposed regulations really are. (And it is possible that's indicative, right there, about just how problematic they are. On the other hand, if you are a professional/commercial manufacturer of supplements, it does seem reasonable that you should go through a certain level of "proof" for your product before unleashing it on the market.

Anyway.

The doctors (Rowen, Mercola and others) are saying it's now time to act.

Dr. Robert Rowen writes:

Do you enjoy your HD cable television set or your iPhone? How would you feel if the government stepped in to tell you that you can't use these anymore? Instead, you have to return to the archaic analogue bulky phones of more than 17 years ago, or switch back to just network TV with its rabbit-ear antenna. Would you sit and take it? I hope not!

Well, that's exactly what's going to happen to your supplements at the hands of our rulers if we don't act and act decisively. The FDA has sat and watched (not always peacefully) the supplement industry make incredible progress for 17 years.

After 17 years with a near-perfect safety record (ephedra being one of the only exceptions), the FDA has announced a new set of guidelines for supplements. These new guidelines will roll back the availability of supplements to those that were sold in 1994, and in the forms [in which] they were sold at that time.

In other words, these guidelines will roll back a decade of innovation, discovery, and improvements. We have discovered incredible combinations of supplements, better delivery methods, improved methods of extraction, etc. But your rulers say they know better than science and you. They plan to remove the majority of supplements that you well know, including fish oil, high-potency vitamin C products, new bioflavonoids (such as resveratrol), and combination products.

In order to get these non-patentable formulations to you, the supplement companies will have to comply with costs and regulations that will drive them out of business.

It's no wonder this is happening. Big Pharma's in big trouble. Its products not only don't work, but they also kill and maim people. Profitable drugs are going off patent, which will incur bazillions in lost revenue. Pharma's products simply cover symptoms with chemicals, resulting in yet more symptoms, needing yet more treatment. [See my post that includes a doctor's summary of just one woman's experience of this. --JAH] This is great for the drug companies. But it's horrific for you and your wallet.

Big Pharma knows it's selling snake oil. And it knows the public is getting wise to its ponzi scheme. So if you can't beat the competition with a superior product, as a true free market system should provide, then buy the government and destroy your competition with regulations. Big Pharma has the billions of dollars it takes to buy and control government. The FDA says it's doing all this to protect you. But the reality is the FDA is doing this to protect Big Pharma.

It's not just the government and FDA that Pharma own and runs. It's also the medical journals that are supposed to publish information that can help save your life. In light of the FDA's move to wipe out supplements, I'd like to give a nod to cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD. Two recent articles in mainstream medicine admitted that conventional medicine has NOTHING to offer for a serious and growing heart problem - diastolic dysfunction. Dr. Sinatra wrote the Archives of Internal Medicine a letter (in his capacity as a cardiologist) to the editor in response to the two reports pointing out his effective approach using the "awesome foursome" for heart: D-ribose, CoQ10, magnesium, and L-carnitine, the very supplements I recommend here.

You'd think that the journal would snap up a treatment for a major disorder. This disorder affects millions worldwide, has no drug treatment, and can lead to serious heart failure. Add to this that it's a disorder often caused by statins!

But, no, he quickly got a form letter of rejection. Sinatra noted that previous medical research found that the more pharmaceutical advertising a journal publishes, the less reporting on supplements it does. And, what these journals report is generally negative. [See Sinatra's newsletter for the original source of Rowen's story, here. --JAH]

Now please consider that there is NO drug that cures any disease (except perhaps antibiotics for infection). Consider that nutrition insufficiency is 100% proven as a major cause of disease. It's also 100% proven to help or cure certain conditions, like the above heart condition. So, is there any wonder who owns the FDA and who has every interest in controlling the disease maintenance system of America?

Here's what you need to do today:

Complaining to the FDA will likely do little. Leopards don't change their spots. Neither will those who are working actively FOR Pharma. Please contact your U.S. elected officials. You can find their contact information at www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.

Please call their offices AND write letters demanding that they rein in the FDA to protect your rights to the supplements you choose (not supplements based on the knowledge of two decades ago). There is already enough protection written into law for the FDA to move on anything found unsafe. We don't need to wipe out an entire industry at this time of economic hardship. We don't need to wipe out your means to maintain and regain your health, at a time when "symptom suppression" costs are skyrocketing. We need to empower people to keep well.

My publisher Garret Wood has a far more detailed story that you can read here. Please read it thoroughly and join me in my continuing efforts to totally wrest our medical freedoms from draconian government interventions. Please act NOW to prevent the 200-year-old warnings of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush from happening.

"Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now." - Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution of this Republic should make special provision for medical freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic.

...Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people who wish doctors and treatment of their own choice to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers." - Benjamin Rush (famous colonial physician, Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence, 1787).

Yours for better health and medical freedom,

Robert J. Rowen, MD

Food wars: It's us (consumers) v. them (the processors)

2011-11-02T06:31:00.000-06:00

Please excuse the occasional scatological language the author uses in The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You. The information is solid. And, I hope, will alarm you enough to take action . . . at least to avoid the most egregious offenders. Someone needs to stand up against the processed foods juggernaut.

Ever since I realized I had to begin eating gluten-free, Sarita and I have attempted to become more diligent about reading our food labels (when we buy processed foods).

There are times--when we go out to eat--that we do the equivalent of the two (out of three) "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" monkeys. We cover our eyes and ears and simply eat what is put before us . . . as long as they tell us the food is gluten free.

But for everyday eating, we have become ever-more-diligent about reading our labels. Perhaps this article will encourage you to begin doing that, too.

In preparation for some of your label-reading, you can't do much better than The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You.

I've known about the top four lies ("Bulls**t Health Claims," "'Free Range' Chickens That Are Crammed Into a Giant Room." "Fake Berries," and "Ammonia-Infused Hamburger"). But I didn't know about Number 5 ("Zombie Orange Juice"--referring to that premium "Not From Concentrate" juice I have loved ever since I first discovered it) or Number 6 ("The Secret Ingredient: Wood").

Rather maddening--no, infuriating--to find out what the FDA permits in our food and to be said or implied about our food--so long as it has been processed.

Even more maddening what they won't permit to be said about natural, unprocessed foods . . . like walnuts and cherries.

Never too old . . .

2011-09-01T22:11:00.000-06:00

As my high school classmates and I are turning 56 this year, I thought the following stories deserve our attention.

Let's not think of ourselves as old. Not when we've got a 61-year-old Vietnam vet playing college football and a 73-year-old playing college basketball.

Rick Perry's Gardasil problem

2011-08-27T12:24:00.000-06:00

I've noticed that "conservative" news sources seem to be touting Rick Perry for president. What's strange: Just a couple of days before, I ran across a story about his ties to the drug company Merck . . . and how, it appears, he abused his power as governor of Texas to attempt to grant Merck a tremendous boon, in terms of sales, at the awful expense of the people of Texas, whose interests you would hope he would have held of highest importance.

Considering that background story, and considering how it appears the U.S. government is already controlled, to too great an extent, by Big Pharma and Corporate Agriculture interests--both of which might reasonably be shown to be contributing to the destruction of Americans' and, in fact, almost all humans' health--I wonder: do we really want a Rick Perry kind of person representing us as president?

I first ran across this story in a poorly-researched--or, at least, horribly worded!--article by Christina Luisa in NaturalNews.com.

In February of 2007, [Rick Perry,] the governor of Texas[,] issued an executive order that bypassed the will of the Texas people and the entire legislature, mandating the vaccination of young girls -- in Grade 6 in Texas -- with the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company in charge of the . . . venture and the chief distributor of the vaccine, was the same drug company that was reported to have given thousands of dollars to Perry's campaign efforts.

The vaccine was given FDA approval in June 2006 then rushed to the market without proper testing through clinical trials. . . . Only 8 months later Gov. Perry signed the executive order mandating this vaccine to all young girls (and later young boys). . . .

Although there are over 25 million people in the state of Texas, as a justification for his actions, Perry reported that there were . . . 391 deaths of women by cervical cancer -- [none of which deaths had] been proven to be caused by the HPV virus to begin with. . . .

[O]nly four months after Perry signed his order for mandated Gardasil vaccines, there were 13 cases of adverse vaccine reactions reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] database. There were thousands more negative reactions reported that were never touched by the mainstream media. By this alone, Rick Perry should have dismantled his executive order - but did he? Certainly not. . . .

I think Ms Luisa's heart is in the right place, but as numerous other sources have noted,

Just six weeks after Perry put pen to paper, the Texas House rebuked him on March 14, 2007, passing HB 1098, overturning his executive order by a vote of 119-21. The Senate followed suit the following month by a vote of 30-1.

Realizing both chambers had large enough majorities to override a veto, Perry opted to let the bill [overturning his order] become law without his signature. On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

So I'm not sure why Luisa talks about Perry failing to dismantle his executive order.

But, nonetheless, there is a serious story here. And I'm led to wonder: Do we want a man to serve as president who is so willing to permit special interest groups like Merck to bully hundreds of thousands of people to use their children as guinea pigs for expensive medical experiments (Gardasil required/requires a series of three shots, each costing approximately $120!) . . . and then attempt to turn the tables on those who call him for his bad judgment by suggesting that they lack compassion for women and girls:

On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

In a grand flourish, Perry thanked the small minority of legislators who sided with him: "They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency."

In response, the sponsor of HB 1098, Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, [said,] "Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls." . . .

And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

But perhaps we should ignore these concerns. Perry had it on good authority that the vaccine was wonderful. After all,

his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and . . . his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls.

Shouldn't he be able to trust such people to give him the real scoop on the efficacy of Merck's drugs?

Unintended consequences of national health care: incentives

2011-05-11T07:48:00.000-06:00

I met with a new vitality and longevity doctor last Friday. We had a great time swapping stories and perspectives.
"I'm all for evidence-based medicine," he said. "The only problem is, whose evidence? And how much is required?"

I will give just two examples from my own experience:

Thyroxine: Kaiser Permanente (at least the doctors I've been dealing with) takes the perspective that a TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) test is "good enough" to tell whether and how much you need thyroxine supplements. Problem is--and I've seen it in my own body, not to mention read enough stories of others: Your TSH may come back in the "normal" range but the actual thyroxine hormones--T4 or T3 (not to mention Reverse T3)--may be completely wacked out. Or, as many (primarily women) have discovered, their T3 levels may, according to the standards of the laboratory, be within the low "normal" range, but they are feeling sluggish and exhibiting all the signs of significantly low thyroxine. "But the test shows you are normal," says their conventional doctor. "Yeah, but my body says I am low."

Guess who's going to "win" this particular battle?

The only way the woman is going to win is to find a doctor who is willing to consider the broader range of diagnostic symptoms than the TSH test and the supposedly "normal" range.
Testosterone: Yipes!

According to the latest LabCorp standards, "normal" serum levels go all the way from 193ng/dL on the low end up to 740ng/dL on the high. Strangely, up until sometimes late last year, their "normal" range went from 280ng/dL to 800. And while that was LabCorp's standard, my longevity and vitality doctor was recommending a range of 700 to 900 as optimal.

Well, I can tell you from experience that, at least for this guy, at 441, I was definitely below optimal. From the mid-500s up to 900, I was doing very well. When I hit 194 last year (supposedly "normal," right????), I was in major trouble. I had no physical response at all. Without getting graphic, let's say it was as if all the nerves had been cut to a certain portion of my anatomy that, when healthy, would have plenty of neurological receptors.

But there was nothing.

Kinda scary when you think you might have a few years, yet, to live! Or, at least, you'd like to imagine you might have a few more years left.

But "evidence-based medicine" would have told me that my labs were "normal," even if they did come back at the bottom edge of normalcy.

So my doctor and I were discussing things like that.

He brought up the upcoming/expected healthcare program from our federal government.

"The bill is 2,000 pages long," he said. "We are told we can expect that there will be approximately 100 pages of regulations for every page in the bill. In other words, 200,000 pages of regulations.

"Guess what the penalties are if a doctor breaks one of the regulations?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"A $100,000 fine for the first offense," he said, "and it goes up from there."

According to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment blog,

The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology “will determine treatment at the time and place of care”. They are charged with deciding the course of treatment for the diagnosis given by the doctor.

Now it becomes obvious why there has been a big push towards the implementation of universal electronic medical record use. It becomes a tool to completely control the physician and the patient. Those physicians and hospitals that choose to practice individualized patient care in consultation with their patients will be punished because they are not “meaningful users of the system over time.”

Beginning January 1, 2013 penalties for doing the right thing for a patient will cost the doctor $100,000 for the first offense and jail for the second offense. This will have a chilling effect and may be the straw that completely breaks the foundation of good medicine – the doctor patient relationship.

And then he said almost exactly the same thing my last pre-Kaiser general practitioner said to me: "I'm going to quit practicing medicine. It's not worth the risk."

My last pre-Kaiser GP, who may be about 60 years old at this point (he would have been in his low 50s back when I dealt with him) said he had made only $75,000 a year in the last three years of his practice; he felt he received no honor anymore as a doctor; all of his decisions were second-guessed and overridden by the insurance companies ("A high school graduate reads down a list and tells me, 'Yes, you can do that,' or, 'No. You may not provide that kind of service to your patient.'). My brother-in-law, who owns a carpet store can win trips to Hawaii, but if I so much as accept a pen from a pharmaceutical salesperson, I am charged with ethics problems. . . ."

He quit.

The doctor with whom I was speaking last Friday made another comment that struck me with respect to my old GP's comment about honor: "We are no longer called 'doctor,' anymore. We are called the same thing as nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and hospital orderlies: We are all 'healthcare providers' or 'healthcare workers.'"

"Why would anyone go through all the pain and agony of a full medical education to wind up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt . . . and earning $75,000 a year?" asked my old GP.

"Why would anyone want to go through the pain and agony of a full medical education only to become a 'healthcare worker' on the same level as a nurse?" asked my vitality and longevity doctor.

One last comment he made:

"I did my residency in what was, arguably, the very best hospital in the country at the time. But I am paid no more by the government than the person who was trained at ___________" (and he mentioned a fine, but certainly not nationally-recognized facility). "What's the point?"

I'm sure there will still be those who desire to do the best or be the best, no matter what. But one does have to begin questioning the impact of incentives.

Food sovereignty

2011-05-10T08:06:00.000-06:00

One of my sisters-in-law sent me a link to an article titled Maine Town Declares Food Sovereignty. Hunh? "Food sovereignty"? What's that?

Well, here's what it means to Sedgwick, Maine citizens:

the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meats, and just about anything else you can imagine. It’s also a decided bucking of state and federal laws. . . .

The proposed warrant added, “It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” In other words, no state licensing requirements prohibiting certain farms from selling dairy products or producing their own chickens for sale to other citizens in the town.

What about potential legal liability and state or federal inspections? It’s all up to the seller and buyer to negotiate. “Patrons purchasing food for home consumption may enter into private agreements with those producers or processors of local foods to waive any liability for the consumption of that food. Producers or processors of local foods shall be exempt from licensure and inspection requirements for that food as long as those agreements are in effect.”

Imagine that--buyer and seller can agree to cut out the lawyers. That’s almost un-American, isn’t it?

There's a lot more about this ground-breaking legal attempt to break free from Big Brother. Check it out!

School lunches

2011-05-07T22:21:00.000-06:00

I was reading the latest This is True and ran across a most amazing story about a woman who works in a public school and decided to eat the same lunch that the kids are served every day. She blogged about it for the full year.

Her entire view of food was transformed during that year.

I just looked at the so-called "food" the children are being served and was appalled.

Check out the article by Rebecca Dube about the Fed Up With School Lunch blog: Year of mystery meat.

[O]n the first day of school last January, [Mrs. Q, an employee in a Chicago area school] made her way to the cafeteria with the kids. Since that day, her commitment to eat lunch there every day has been tested by the prepackaged peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that literally made her sick; by the monotony of processed, spongy meat patties; and by fears of being found out and losing her job. . . .

Day after day, patty after patty, she ate and she blogged, and began to find her voice: Her initial just-the-facts descriptions of gross meals evolved into funny stories about the kids at school and personal musings about food. She learned to drink the juice from the bottom of her fruit cup, just as the kids did. . . .

Mrs. Q almost didn’t do the lunch blog because of concerns it would take too much time away from her son, now 2, who suffered from chronic ear infections and colds when she started the project. But, ironically, he’s been the one to benefit most. As she wrote and thought more about food, and communicated with commenters on her blog, she realized her son’s health problems might be related to what he was eating. She cut out gluten and dairy from his diet, and his health improved dramatically.

“I wouldn’t have made those connections if I had not done this blog. I’ve seen a complete change in my son,” she said.

She and her husband are eating differently, too: “I would never have thought of feeding my family quinoa. It sounded too hippie. Now I like it.”

There's more in the story. And a whole lot more in the blog itself . . . which is continuing today with stories and photos of Mrs. Q's new and nutritious gluten- and dairy-free lunches.

"Roundup Ready" GMOs tied to MAJOR life and health risks

2011-05-04T13:10:00.000-06:00

I've been "sitting" on this one. I first heard about it in January and several times in February. I've "just" wanted all my ducks in a row. But I'm out of time.
Happily, Judith McGeary, founder and Executive Director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA), has given me permission to copy her news item. She speaks in rather understated terms. Go to the original documents to which she refers, and we're talking about a warning letter from a man who has served for 40 years "in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks."

"Based on this experience," he says, "I believe the threat we are facing . . . is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency."

What is he talking about? A "micro-fungal-like organism" that is causing "infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%."

"In summary," he concludes,

because of the high titer of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions, we request USDA’s participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health.

Dr. Don Huber, Emeritus Professor, Purdue University, and APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System, sent this letter to Thomas Vilsack, United States Secretary of Agriculture, on January 17th. And what did Vilsack do with it?

He completely ignored it!

Here is Judith McGeary's summary:

Watch the video interview with Dr. Huber about the new pathogen that's threatening our food!

And then tell President Obama to say "no" to GMO Alfalfa and Sugar Beets

On January 17, 2011, Dr. Don Huber, an internationally-recognized plant pathologist and Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack alerting him to a serious problem facing U.S. agriculture. This letter warned Secretary Vilsack of a previously unknown pathogen that "should be treated as an emergency."

Dr. Huber’s letter discussed the new pathogen in dire terms, saying that a top team of scientists had discovered a link between the new pathogen, the steady rise of plant diseases in Roundup Ready corn and soybean crops, and the high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions of animal livestock consuming feed that had been treated with the weed killer Roundup.

The letter urged Secretary Vilsack not to approve Roundup Ready alfalfa because of the high levels "of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions," and to conduct research on the relationship between Roundup Ready crops, glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), and this new pathogen.

The USDA chose to ignore this warning and less than three weeks later approved two new GMO crops, including Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa, creating a threat to the primary forage feed for US livestock.

The letter, although intended to be confidential, was leaked by a third party, after which Dr. Huber gave permission for FARFA and others to post it. The now-public letter unleashed a storm of accusations and recriminations, including a quick response from Monsanto.

Earlier this spring, FARFA worked with Food Democracy Now! on an interview with Dr. Huber to investigate these new findings and understand the latest science. We were greatly alarmed by what we learned and appreciate Dr. Huber’s courage in coming forward to warn the government about this serious threat to the livelihoods of farmers, animal livestock, and our global food supply.

Watch the full interview with Dr. Huber on Vimeo (the interview is a large file, so if you have trouble viewing it, you can also view individual short segments on Food Democracy Now's website)

More Information:

Read Dr. Huber's second explanatory letter here

Read an in-depth interview with Dr. Huber by Acres USA

It’s planting season now. If these new Roundup Ready alfalfa seeds go in the ground, it will be too late to stop them from making their way up the food chain -- putting America’s crops, livestock, and ultimately our families at risk.

TAKE ACTION

1) CALL THE WHITE HOUSE
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461
Online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

MESSAGE: "I'm appalled that President Obama and Secretary Vilsack ignored Dr. Huber's warnings about the threat posed by a new pathogen linked to genetically modified crops and Roundup. It was wrong to approve GMO alfalfa and sugar beets without more research. I insist that President Obama place an immediate moratorium on the planting of these GMO crops."

2) SIGN THE PETITION

Together with Food Democracy Now!, we have drafted a letter to President Obama and Secretary Vilsack insisting that they suspend the sale and planting of Monstanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa seeds until independent third party scientific research can be conducted proving the safety of GMO crops. Will you please sign on?

You can view the video and sign the petition on Food Democracy Now's website -- scroll to the bottom of the page for the petition. (note: because of the software, you will be automatically signed up for Food Democracy Now's email alerts, but you can choose to unsubscribe if you prefer)

See an HTML version of Huber's original letter about halfway down the page here . . . along with several other supporting documents.

Oh. Lest someone charge me with being "head in the sand."

* Yes, there are stories that Huber's colleagues at Purdue have claimed his concerns are overblown. "The proof isn't in."

* Okay. Maybe it's not all in. But that's really what Huber said, isn't it? He said, "Let's get the research right before unleashing this stuff in the wild." Specifically:

[W]e request USDA’s participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health.

It is urgent to examine whether the side-effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders. To properly evaluate these factors, we request access to the relevant USDA data.

So why did Vilsack approve it? Why would our government keep marching forward despite the warning? Gotta keep Monsanto in profits? (See also this and this and this.) (???!!! USDA Allows Monsanto to Approve its Own Crops???!!!!)

* Or how's this for a more thoughtful perspective?

Senate passes bill that may jail food makers for speaking honestly about their foods

2011-04-27T10:51:00.001-06:00

And now for the so-called "Food Safety Accountability Act." (The last one was called the "Food Safety Modernization Act.")

I got this notice from the Life Extension Foundation yesterday afternoon:

Despite protests from health freedom activists, the Senate passed a bill that enables the FDA to put food makers in jail for ten years!
If enacted by the House of Representatives, this bill would empower the FDA to imprison food makers if they quote findings from peer-reviewed published scientific studies on their websites.

This draconian proposal is concealed in a bill titled the Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216). This bill passed the Senate because it inflicts harsh jail sentences against anyone who knowingly contaminates food for sale. But there already are strong laws to punish anyone who commits this crime, so this bill instead serves the purpose of enriching pharmaceutical interests by censoring what healthy food makers can say about their products.

Drug companies now want to convince your representative that this overreaching law needs to be enacted to further empower the FDA.

The problem is the FDA can proclaim a food as “misbranded” even if the best science in the world is used to describe its biological effects in the body. The fear is the FDA will use the term “misbranded” in the same way it defines “adulterated” in order to jail food makers under the guise that they are selling contaminated food.

The big issue is that if this bill is passed in the House, it gives the FDA legal authority to threaten and coerce small companies into signing crippling consent decrees that will deny consumers access to truthful non-misleading information about natural approaches to protect against age-related disease.

Please tell your representative to OPPOSE the Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216) in its present form. You can do this in a few minutes on our convenient Legislative Action Center on our website.

Before you click through, let me try to affirm, with evidence, the truth of what they are saying about "misbranding." This is the part of the story I have been following for some time and, actually, about which I reported back in October of last year.

The problem: As the publisher of one of the newsletters I receive wrote in February:

FDA bureaucrats . . . last year sent an ominous "warning letter" to Diamond Foods, Inc.

[They] have an issue with the way Diamond referenced scientific and medical studies in their marketing. In essence, the FDA told Diamond Foods, Inc. – Walnuts Are Drugs! Here are some excerpts from the ridiculous letter (emphasis mine):

"...your walnut products are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes. Thus, your walnut products are also misbranded under Section 502(f)(1) of the Act, in that the labeling for these drugs fails to bear adequate directions for use..."
Just to be clear, we're talking about the whole food – walnuts. Not a molecule or derivative or modified extract made from walnuts. It's the same walnuts you find in a fruit cake!

"...your firm's website also contains several additional unauthorized health claims..."
The FDA doesn't have an issue with the validity of the scientific or medical research referenced, such as the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts. Its issue is that it did not authorize Diamond Foods, Inc. to say so.

"...You should take prompt action to correct these violations. Failure to do so may result in regulatory action... seizure or injunction."

It's Just Walnuts,
Not Illicit Narcotics or Poisons that Harm Consumers!
The FDA is taking on Diamond Foods, Inc. because it was promoting the health benefits of walnuts, nothing more.

Diamond was not using false statements.

Walnuts are not dangerous to your health (as are many FDA-approved prescription medications, whose side effects and improper administration kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year).

The scientific and medical research referenced by Diamond was true and accurate.

But because Diamond was promoting health benefits, the FDA claimed that it now has the authority to step in, classify walnuts as drugs, and force Diamond to correct violations or face "regulatory action... seizure or injunction."

There are other examples. I encourage you to read my Follow the money, Part 1 post from last year. Or simply read this brief section from that post:

[L]et me link to a few typical warning letters from the FDA, so you can see how they phrase things.

Check out, for example, this letter to Payson Fruit Growers of Payson, Utah, or to Cherry Lands Best of Appleton, Wisconsin. --Or take a look at any of the dozens of similar "Labeling and Promotional Violations" letters on the FDA website. --October 17, 2005 was a good date for cherry marketers.

As the letters explain, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease in man are drugs" and any health claims made for any product "cause [such] product to be a drug."

Because [cherries, walnuts, or whatever food are] not generally recognized as safe and effective when used as labeled, [they are] also . . . new drug[s] as defined in Section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)]. Under Section 505 of the Act (21 U.S .C. 355), a new drug may not be legally marketed in the United States without an approved New Drug Application (NDA).

With all of this as background, then, the Life Extension Foundation urges us to use their Legislative Action Center, a very slick tool for contacting legislators, to, yes, contact our representatives.

I took the standard email letter they have already provided and edited it as follows:

Subject: Please STOP the Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216) from proceeding in the House!

Sir:

I am astonished and dismayed at how the corporate interests of Industrial Agriculture and Big Pharma are taking over policy at the federal level. The so-called Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216) is "just" the most recent example.

Most disturbing: in its present form, this bill refers to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for its definitions of the terms "adulterated" and "misbranded." This enables the FDA to charge food makers with "misbranding" if they make completely true statements about the health properties of a food or food product but have not first acquired FDA permission.

Need some specific examples? There are many. But in case you are unaware, please consider what happened just a few months ago to Diamond Foods, Inc. when Diamond referenced scientific and medical studies in their marketing and on their website.

For their temerity in referencing such studies, the FDA told Diamond (see http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/ucm202825.htm) that they were obviously promoting the use of an "unapproved drug" and this "unapproved drug," their "walnut products" [whole walnuts!] were being "offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes. Thus, your walnut products are also MISBRANDED under Section 502(f)(1) of the Act, in that the labeling for these drugs fails to bear adequate directions for use." (Emphasis added.)

Is this ridiculous? I think it is!

Obviously, the FDA had no basis for an issue with the validity of the scientific or medical research referenced, such as the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts. Its issue was that it did not authorize Diamond Foods, Inc. to communicate about these benefits.

Talk about First Amendment issues!

Oh. Meanwhile? While FDA goes after Diamond for scientifically-backed claims about the healthy nature of their walnuts, a truly healthy food, what do they do about Frito-Lay and their health claims about Doritos and other such processed junk food?

Nothing!

(Please see FDA Says Walnuts Are Drugs and Doritos Are Heart Healthy.)

I ask that you take assertive action to block the introduction of S.216 into the House.

Thank you.

Finally, for a slightly (but only slightly!) different perspective on the issue, see the Eye on FDA ("RX for Pharma Industry Communications and Planning") blog, where the author, Mark Senak, an attorney for a major corporate PR firm who specializes in "the approval and marketing of pharmaceutical drugs, particularly as related to their regulation by the FDA," writes (January 19, 2011):

Last week, the General Accounting Office issued a report entitled “FDA Needs to Reassess Its Approach to Protecting Consumers from False or Misleading Claims” where – well, the title sort of gives away the gist of the thing, doesn’t it. FDA does need to re-think this. . . .

The GAO report is a really good primer for those who want to get familiar with [the topic of health claims], and includes not only concise definitions, but an overview of FDA activities around different health claims in food in general (with a table describing each action) as well as the two during 2010 that were particular to qualified health claims.

[O]ne of the conclusions of the report is that stakeholders find the various types and levels of health-related labeling to be confusing. All you have to do is try to sort through the various areas of FDA’s Web site about health label claims and one can easily see why. There is no easy way to discern the differences or any basic English communication that explains it. The GAO report also stated that the FDA has not given companies enough guidance on the types of scientific support needed in support of a claim.

On a side note, it is also important to point out that along with FDA, the Federal Trade Commission is also involved in regulating claims. There were at least two instances in 2010 where health claims and labels got in trouble with both the FDA and the FTC for the same product. As we head into an era of greater interest in health and food, it is important for the environment to be clarified and simplified for all stakeholders – manufacturers and consumers.

Something you need to be aware of concerning cancer . . .

2011-04-23T08:36:00.000-06:00

How do you get good information about health care?

I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with a lot of medical practitioners. My experience tells me they are too focused on treatment of symptoms and nowhere near enough focused on causes. And so, while eliminating one symptom (and ignoring its cause), they create additional problems somewhere else in the body.

Well, this story, from an interview by Dr. Joseph Mercola with Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez (both MDs, by the way!), takes the cake: The Cancer Treatment So Successful - Traditional Doctors SHUT it Down.

I urge you to download the transcript of the interview.

It wouldn't surprise me if the FDA were to come swooping in on Mercola for this kind of commentary.

Mercola introduces his article and interview with these comments:

[Dr. Gonzalez] didn't set out to treat cancer at first . . . let alone treat patients. His original plan was to be a basic science researcher at Sloan-Kettering; a teaching hospital for Cornell Medical College. He had a chance meeting with William Kelley, a controversial dentist who was one of the founders of nutritional typing. Dr. Kelley had been practicing alternative- and nutritional approaches for over two decades at the time, led him to begin a student project investigation of Kelley's work, in the summer of 1981.

"I started going through his records and even though I was just a second year medical student, I could see right away there were cases that were extraordinary," he says. "Patients with appropriately diagnosed pancreatic cancer, metastatic breast cancer in the bone, metastatic colorectal cancer… who were alive 5, 10, 15 years later under Kelley's care with a nutritional approach."
This preliminary review led to a formal research study, which Dr. Gonzalez completed while doing his fellowship in cancer, immunology and bone marrow transplantation.

The "Impossible" Recoveries of Dr. Kelley's Cancer Patients
After going through thousands of Kelley's records, Dr. Gonzalez put together a monograph, divided into three sections:

Kelley’s theory

50 cases of appropriately-diagnosed lethal cancer patients still alive five to 15 years after diagnosis, whose long-term survival was attributed to Kelley’s program

Patients Kelley had treated with pancreatic cancer between the years 1974 and 1982
According to Dr. Good, the president of Sloan-Kettering who had become Gonzalez' mentor, if Kelley could produce even one patient with appropriately diagnosed pancreatic cancer who was alive 5-10 years later, it would be remarkable. They ultimately tracked down 22 of Kelley's cases. Ten of them met him once and didn't do the program after being dissuaded by family members or doctors who thought Kelley was a quack.

The average survival for that group was about 60 days.

A second group of seven patients who did the therapy partially and incompletely (again, dissuaded by well-intentioned but misguided family members or doctors), had an average survival of 300 days.

The third group consisting of five patients, who were appropriately diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and who completed the full program, had an average survival of eight and a half years! In Dr. Gonzalez' words, this was "just unheard of in medicine."

One of those patients included a woman diagnosed by the Mayo Clinic with stage four pancreatic cancer who had been given six months to live. She'd learned about Kelley's program through a local health food store. She completed his treatment and is still alive today, 29 years later.
The Truth about Medical Journals: Why Gonzalez's Book Was Never Published
However, despite—or rather because of—the remarkable success of the treatment, Gonzalez couldn't get his findings published.

"We tried to publish case reports in the medical journals; the whole book, parts of the book, individual case reports—with no success," he says.
This is an important point that many fail to realize.

Those of us who practice natural medicine are frequently criticized for not publishing our findings. My justification for that is that it's not going to be published anyway, and Dr. Gonzalez' anecdotal story confirms this view.

His mentor and supporter, Dr. Good, was one of the most published authors in the scientific literature at that point, with over 2,000 scientific articles to his name. He'd been nominated for the Nobel Prize three times, and yet he was refused because the findings were "too controversial," and flew in the face of conventional medical doctrine.

If the cream of the crop is refused, how does a general primary care physician get an article published?

He doesn't . . .

"Robert Good was at the top of his profession: President of Sloan-Kettering, father of modern immunology, and did the first bone marrow transplant in history. Yet, he couldn't get it published," Gonzalez says. "He couldn't even get a single case report published.

In fact, I have a letter from one of the editors, dated 1987, who wrote a blistering letter to Good saying "You've been boondoggled by a crazy quack guy. Don't you see this is all a fraud?"

It was just the most extraordinary, irrational letter... [Because] the patients' names were there, the copies of their pertinent medical records were there… Any of them could have called these patients, like Arlene Van Straten who, 29 years later, will talk to anyone… But no one cared. They wouldn't do it; they didn't believe it.

They couldn't believe it.

It was very disturbing to me because I say, "It is what it is." I come out of a very conventional research orientation, and it was astonishing to me—I had assistance; I had the president of Sloane-Kettering who couldn't get this thing published because it disagreed with the philosophy that was being promoted in medicine; that only chemotherapy, radiation, or immunotherapy can successfully treat cancer, even though the success rate was abysmal.

The idea that medical journals are these objective and unbiased repositories of the truths about science is total nonsense. Most of them are owned by the drug companies. They won't publish anything that disagrees with their philosophy."

The story only gets better from here. Names. Dates. Specific numbers. Even phone numbers and book titles. Who's telling the truth? Who's lying? I'll let you read the details for yourself.

Yipes!

Infuriating power grabs . . .

2011-04-14T22:29:00.000-06:00

This just in from the Life Extension Foundation:

Senate Bill Would Jail Food Makers for Ten Years!

As if Congress does not have enough urgent work to do, a bill has just been introduced that would vastly expand the FDA’s power to put food makers in jail for ten years!

Just a few days ago, [we informed you] that a walnut [distributor] capitulated to FDA pressure and removed truthful health claims from its website. [I have copied the article below. --JAH] The bill just introduced in the Senate would grant the FDA far more draconian powers to censor this kind of health information.

This Senate bill will enable the FDA to incarcerate food makers if they cite findings from peer-reviewed published scientific studies on their websites.

The pretext for these draconian proposals is a bill titled the Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216). The ostensible purpose of the bill is to punish anyone who knowingly contaminates food for sale. Since there are already strong laws to punish anyone who commits this crime, this bill serves little purpose other than enriching pharmaceutical interests by censoring what healthy food makers can say about their products.

The sinister scheme behind this bill is to exploit the public’s concern about food safety. Drug companies want to convince your senators that an overreaching law needs to be enacted to grant the FDA powers to define “food contamination” any way it chooses.

The problem is the FDA can proclaim a food as “misbranded” even if the best science in the world is used to describe its biological effects in the body. The fear is the FDA will use the term “misbranded” in the same way it defines “adulterated” in order to jail food makers as if they were selling contaminated food.

While the new bill only refers to food violations and not supplements, the FDA may not interpret it this way. The big issue here is that if this bill is passed, it would give the FDA legal authority to threaten and coerce small companies into signing crippling consent decrees that will deny consumers access to truthful non-misleading information about natural approaches to protect against age-related disease.

Please tell your two senators to OPPOSE the Food Safety Accountability Act (S.216) in its present form. You can do this in a few minutes on our convenient Legislative Action Center on our website.

And the story of the walnut distributor?

Walnut [Distributor] Capitulates to FDA Censorship

Life Extension^® has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts.

Some of this same scientific data was featured on the website of Diamond Foods, Inc., a distributor of packaged walnuts.

Last year the FDA determined that walnuts sold by Diamond Foods cannot be legally marketed because the walnuts “are not generally recognized as safe and effective” for the medical conditions referenced on Diamond Foods’ website.

According to the FDA, these walnuts were classified as “drugs” and the “unauthorized health claims” cause them to become “misbranded,” thus subjecting them to government “seizure or injunction.”

Despite pleas from health freedom activists to challenge this blatant example of censorship, Diamond Foods capitulated and removed from its website statements about the benefits of walnuts.

FDA thus scored a victory by denying some Americans access to scientific data about a food that can reduce the risk of the most common diseases afflicting aging humans.^1-15

You now have the opportunity to strike back

On April 5, 2011, a bipartisan bill was introduced into the House of Representatives called the Free Speech about Science Act (H.R. 1364). This landmark legislation protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.

The Free Speech about Science bill has the potential to transform medical practice by educating the public about the real science behind natural health.

For this very reason, the bill will have opposition. It will be opposed by the FDA since it restricts their ability to censor the dissemination of published scientific data. It will be opposed by drug companies fearing competition from natural health approaches based on diet, dietary supplements, and lifestyle.

The public, on the other hand, wants access to credible information they can use to make wise dietary choices. Please don’t let special interests stop this bill.

I ask that each of you log on to our Legislative Action website that enables you to conveniently e-mail and ask your Representative to cosponsor the Free Speech about Science Act (H.R. 1364).

Passage of the Free Speech about Science Act will stop federal agencies from squandering tax dollars censoring what you are allowed to learn about health-promoting foods.

Our Legislative Action website provides you direct contact with your Representative to let them know that you want H.R. 1364 (Free Speech about Science Act) enacted into law.

References
1. Ros E, Núñez I, Pérez-Heras A, et al. A walnut diet improves endothelial function in hypercholesterolemic subjects: a randomized crossover trial. Circulation. 2004 Apr 6;109(13):1609-14.
2. Feldman EB. The scientific evidence for a beneficial health relationship between walnuts and coronary heart disease. J Nutr. 2002 May;132(5):1062S-1101S.
3. Blomhoff R, Carlsen MH, Andersen LF, Jacobs DR Jr. Health benefits of nuts: potential role of antioxidants. Br J Nutr. 2006 Nov;96 Suppl 2:S52-60.
4. Mozaffarian D. Does alpha-linolenic acid intake reduce the risk of coronary heart disease? A review of the evidence. Altern Ther Health Med. 2005 May-Jun;11(3):24-30; quiz 31, 79.
5. Zhao G, Etherton TD, Martin KR, West SG, Gillies PJ, Kris-Etherton PM. Dietary alpha-linolenic acid reduces inflammatory and lipid cardiovascular risk factors in hypercholesterolemic men and women. J Nutr. 2004 Nov;134(11):2991-7.
6. Tapsell LC, Gillen LJ, Patch CS, Batterham M, Owen A, Baré M, Kennedy M. Including walnuts in a low-fat/modified-fat diet improves HDL cholesterol-to-total cholesterol ratios in patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2004 Dec;27(12):2777-83.
7. West SG. Alpha-Linolenic Acid from Walnuts P85 and Flax Increases Flow-Mediated Dilation of the Brachial Artery in a Dose-Dependent Fashion. Pennsylvania State University. American Heart Association’s 5th Annual Conference on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology in San Francisco. May 2004.
8. Iwamoto M, Imaizumi K, Sato M, Hirooka Y, Sakai K, Takeshita A, Kono M. Serum lipid profiles in Japanese women and men during consumption of walnuts. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2002 Jul;56(7):629-37.
9. Morgan JM, Horton K, Reese D, et al.Effects of walnut consumption as part of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet on serum cardiovascular risk factors. Int’l J for Vit & Nutr Research. 2002 72:341-347.
10. Hu FB, Stampfer MJ, Manson JE, et al. Frequent nut consumption and risk of coronary heart disease in women: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 1998 Nov 14;317(7169):1341-5.
11. Chisholm A, Mann J, Skeaff M, et al. A diet rich in walnuts favourably influences plasma fatty acid profile in moderately hyperlipidaemic subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1998 Jan;52(1):12-6.
12. de Lorgeril M, Renaud S, Mamelle N, et al. Mediterranean alpha-linolenic acid-rich diet in secondary prevention of coronary heart disease. Lancet. 1994 Jun 11;343(8911):1454-9.
13. Cortés B, Núñez I, Cofán M, et al. Acute effects of high-fat meals enriched with walnuts or olive oil on postprandial endothelial function. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2006 Oct 17;48(8):1666-71.
14. Ros E, Mataix J. Fatty acid composition of nuts—implications for cardiovascular health. Br J Nutr. 2006 Nov;96 Suppl 2:S29-35.
15. Ma Y, Njike VY, Millet J, et al. Effects of walnut consumption on endothelial function in type 2 diabetic subjects: a randomized controlled crossover trial. Diabetes Care. 2010 Feb;33(2):227-32.

Bedbugs

2011-04-07T12:32:00.000-06:00

I have been seeing articles about bedbugs for the last year and a half or so. Last September when our family visited the portion of the family that lives in Virginia, at least one group thought that they had become infested with bedbugs while in the motel where we were staying. That definitely got our attention!

Yesterday I picked up a magazine whose cover story was about bedbugs. Title: Bug Bedlam. I thought it included a bunch of worthwhile information, much of which I had not seen before.

First thing that caught my eye: Denver's bedbug infestation may be one of the worst in the U.S. According to Orkin, Denver is No. 4, behind only Chicago and the Ohio cities of Columbus and Cincinnati. Terminix ranked us "only" No. 6 in the country based on the volume of calls to its offices.

Yow!

More practical: Telltale signs of an infestation include

blood spots on sheets,
tiny black dots of fecal matter clustered on the edges of mattresses,
piles of translucent skins that the bedbugs shed like snakes,
white eggs the size of dust specks, and, of course,
bedbugs themselves, which are brownish-red, flat, and about as big as an apple seed.

Nowadays, exterminators get rid of bed bugs by cooking them. "[B]edbugs can't withstand temperatures above 120 degrees. So instead of using chemicals, none of which are 100 percent effective, companies have begun offering to essentially turn bug-ridden apartments into ovens and bake the bedbugs to death."

"It only takes one minute at 122 degrees for a bedbug to die," says Chris Covington, co-owner of BedBug Blasters, a Denver area company that specializes in eradicating the pests.

He says [he and his wife] decided to start BedBug Blasters after realizing that the heaters they use [in one of their other businesses] to dry out flooded structures were the same ones being used to kill bedbugs through heat treatment.

And to make sure all the bugs are obliterated, the BedBug Blasters crew will walk their new bedbug-sniffing dog, Bugsy [!!!!--JAH], through a treated apartment two days later.

Bedbug-sniffing dogs?!?

Yep.

The National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Academy in Florida trains detection dogs--which are "98 percent accurate at finding live bedbugs, according to a 2008 study by the University of Florida."

A few other factoids to know about bedbugs:

Bedbugs survive on blood. They eat blood. Period. Blood of humans, blood of animals, it doesn't matter. But they seem to prefer human blood more.
In order to get their meals without you knowing, they inject you with a numbing agent, then go to work.
Bedbugs are "not known to transmit disease," so "their biggest downside may be the ick factor" . . . and the major discomfort their bites can cause after the fact.
A bedbug can survive for an entire year without a blood meal.
"They're . . . quick and efficient reproducers: A female can lay up to 500 eggs in her lifetime. That's why pest-control operators often say that a bedbug infestation is defined as one pregnant female."
"Bedbugs are easily spread. Though they can't fly or jump, they're excellent hitchhikers. 'You could sit on a public bus and get bedbugs.'"
Though it requires no license (at least not in Colorado) to provide the heat treatment to kill bedbugs, it costs a lot more to kill them via heat than with pesticides.

FWIW.

Oh. Just for the fun of it, maybe you want to read about Bob Hancock, a professor who specializes in bedbugs. His story begins in the third paragraph of p. 5 in the online version of the article.

The article concludes:

"They're amazing insects," Hancock coos. "They cause a lot of problems for a lot of people -- and I don't want them in my bed, necessarily -- but I think they're awesome."

Unfortunately for the bedbug, he may be the only one.

What does soda do to our bodies?

2011-03-22T13:06:00.000-06:00

Dr. Joseph Mercola featured a video on his website Sunday that does a great job of explaining what happens to us when we drink soda pop:

Mercola then offers significant--and significantly useful--additional commentary . . . about soda, about its impact on our bodies, what the various common ingredients are and how they, specifically interact with our bodies, and more.

All of these things together lead him to conclude: "One of the simplest ways to radically improve your health: . . . quit drinking soda." . . . --Or, may I suggest, at least radically reduce your consumption since, as Mercola notes, "One . . . independent, peer-reviewed study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that . . . for each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed during the nearly two-year study, the risk of obesity jumped by 60 percent!"

[S]oda clearly elevates your insulin levels, and elevated insulin levels are the foundation of most chronic disease. Not only does drinking just one soda per day increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent, it also increases your risk of:

Heart disease

Cancer

Arthritis

Osteoporosis

Gout

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

--From These 150 Calories Go Straight to Your Bulging Belly - at the Rate of 1 Pound per Week