06.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:02 am by Pit
The news that antidepressants in actual fact don’t work better than sugar pills and increase the risk of suicide has filled major media during the past year. Psychiatrists, Big pharma and medical agencies, responsible for distorting the facts for many years, are now working hard to save profits and careers, says Swedish independent investigator and reporter Janne Larsson.
Image credit: Pharmalot
A new study, “A Regulatory Apologia - A review of placebo controlled studies of new-generation antidepressants”, claiming that antidepressants work well for all forms of depression should be seen in that light. It is another good example of how our allegedly objective medical agencies work together closely with the pharmaceutical industry and its paid psychiatrists to increase sales.
The study was announced in the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association (Läkartidningen) on April 15, 2008. The author, a long standing advocate for antidepressant drugs, Professor Björn Beerman of the Medical Products Agency (MPA), the Swedish equivalent of the FDA, promoted continued high level use of these drugs. Beerman does not believe in the validity of data presented internationally. In the article he stated, as he had many times before, that “there is no doubt that the medication has effect and that this is independent of the degree of depression”, adding “we don't believe that the drugs are less effective in case of mild depression”.
Beerman proudly announced a new study of the Swedish MPA in support of his statements. The study was said to be submitted for publication in The Lancet, a most prestigious medical journal.
But there is another part of the story that needs to be told...
What Beerman did not say in his April 15 announcement was that on 4 April, almost two weeks earlier, the Lancet had already rejected the article – it refused to publish. The MPA then made another attempt at publication, submitting the data to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) – another journal with high impact. But the response was the same, the BMJ rejected the material.
So the Swedish Medical Products Agency – with its pro Big pharma “research message” – went directly to the manufacturers, or rather to a journal with an editor-in-chief who has always been favorable to the approval and sales of antidepressant drugs internationally: The agency submitted its article to European Neuropsychopharmacology, whose editor-in-chief, Dr. Stuart Montgomery, accepted to publish.
For those not familiar with the work of Dr. Montgomery it can be said that he played a major role in helping Big pharma to get new antidepressant drugs approved in the beginning of the '90s – despite the fact that the actual data, even at that time, already showed that these drugs caused an increase in the risk of suicide. Montgomery was also responsible for the famous concealment of the severe withdrawal symptoms caused by any attempt to stop taking Seroxat/Paxil. Instead of accepting the clear withdrawal symptoms for what they were so that patients and doctors could be warned, Dr. Montgomery and colleagues misclassified these symptoms as signs of recurring depression – and the need for more drug treatment.
So it would appear that a study with the PR-message that antidepressants work well for all forms of depression would most likely be very welcome in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology - and it was. One of the reviewers of the article made the point very clear, saying: “This meta-analysis is very timely in the current situation where the recent meta-analysis of Kirsch et al. (2008) induced much uncertainty about the efficacy of antidepressants, both in the psychiatric community and in public opinion.” The reviewer recommended that the article should be published “without delay, given the situation mentioned above [“uncertainty … in the psychiatric community as well as in public opinion”].”
The Swedish MPA and its U.S. counterpart, the FDA, have done almost nothing to use the wealth of data in their files to draw attention to the actual suicide risks inherent in the use of antidepressants, and to warn doctors and the public. There is a newly unsealed extensive analysis by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen that points to GlaxoSmithKline’s hiding of Seroxat/Paxil suicide data. It provides an example of how the pharmaceutical industry will act to protect its interests and how ineffective and almost timid a regulatory agency can be in questioning the data in drug applications http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2008/prg061208a.pdf (4MB).
The lack of efficacy of these drugs has always been denied by the Swedish Medical Products Agency. In addition to this, the inefficient system for post marketing surveillance of adverse drug effects is putting the public at severe risk – yet that situation is allowed to continue unchanged year after year. The often horrible withdrawal symptoms of anti depressant drugs have been explained away as signs of recurring depression – and thus transformed into evidence of positive drug effects; and this manipulation has been accepted by the regulatory agencies. The MPA and the FDA, supposedly established to protect the public, are agencies out of control. They see the pharmaceutical industry as their real clients.
What we are witnessing here is a situation where independent analyses of data submitted to the FDA show no positive effect of antidepressant drugs compared to placebo, and yet the Swedish MPA puts all its “research resources” into action to prove the opposite. Their eagerness to collaborate with Big Pharma in getting out a PR-message, to handle the “uncertainty about the efficacy of antidepressants, both in the psychiatric community as well as in public opinion”, is yet another example of betrayal of the real clients – the public.
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06.21.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:55 am by Pit
William Engdahl's book Seeds of Destruction takes on the hot theme of what is behind the development of genetically altered plants and their imposition by what seems sheer force, on the earth's population. The motives he finds are not something everyone will be comfortable with, but since we are the guinea pigs and the eventual target of the foods so produced, we better start looking.
Seeds of Destruction - Global Research
You may have heard of Arpad Pusztai, a scientist of Hungarian origin who, working in the UK, discovered that genetically modified potatoes, when fed to laboratory animals, caused pathological changes of their organs. The head of the Rowett Institute, which had employed Pusztai, terminated his contract and ruined his career, one indication that there are dark forces at work that will attempt to prevent any damaging information about GMOs to reach the wider public.
Rats fed GM soy developed sick offspring, and the Russian researcher blowing the whistle on that has been similarly vilified and her career ended.
In India, sheep grazing on cotton plants modified to manufacture BT toxin, died in large numbers indicating that the toxin is not, as we are told, harmless to vertebrates.
William Engdahl has put these and other instances of damage and suppression of science together with historical information on the promoters of 'scientific agriculture' and his conclusions are disquieting.
Arun Shrivastava has reviewed Engdahl's book:
- - -
Book Review
Arun Shrivastava
"Seeds of Destruction"
By F William Engdahl
Published by: Global Research
www.globalresearch.ca
Last three or four years have seen a number of books, documentaries and articles on the dangers of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. A majority has focused on adverse health and environmental impact; almost none on the geo-politics of GM seeds, and particularly on the use of seeds as a weapon of mass destruction. Engdahl has addressed this issue but the crop seed is only one of many "Seeds of Destruction" described in this book.
Engdahl carefully documents how the intellectual foundations of 'eugenics,' mass culling of the sick, coloured, and otherwise disposable races, were actually first established, and even legally approved, in the United States. Eugenics research was financially supported by the Rockefeller and other elite families and first tested in Nazi Germany.
It is purely by chance that the world's poorest nations happen to be the ones best endowed with natural resources. These regions are also the ones with growing population. The fear among European ruling families, increasingly integrating with economic and military might of the United States, was that if the poor nations became developed, the abundant natural resources, especially oil, gas and strategic minerals and metals, might become scarcer for the white population. That situation was unacceptable to the white ruling elite.
The central question that dominated the minds of the ruling clique was population reduction in resource-rich countries but the question was how to engineer mass culling all over the world without generating a powerful backlash as it was bound to happen. When the US oil reserves peaked in 1972 and it became a net oil importer, the situation became alarming and the agenda took the centre stage. Kissinger, one of the key strategists of Nixon, nurtured by the Rockefellers, prepared what is known as National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200, in which he elaborated his plan for population reduction. In this Memo he specifically targets thirteen countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, and The Phillipines.
The weapon to be used was food; even if there was a famine food would be used to leverage population reduction. Kissinger is on record for having stated, "Control oil, you control nations; control food and you control the people." How a small group of key people transformed the elitist philosophy of controlling food to control people, into a realistic operational possibility within a short time is the backdrop of Engdahl's book, the central theme running from the beginning till the end with the Rockefellers and Kissinger, among others, as the key dramatis personae.
Engdahl describes how the Rockefellers guided US agriculture policy, using their powerful tax-free foundations worldwide to train an army of bright young scientists in the hitherto unknown field of microbiology. He traces how the field of Eugenics was renamed "genetics" to make it more acceptable and also to hide its real purpose. Through incremental strategic adjustments within a handful of chemical, food and seed corporations, ably supported by persons in key departments of the US Government, behemoths were created that could re-write the regulatory framework of nearly every country. And these seeds of destruction in the form of a carefully constructed regulatory framework - ostensibly to protect the environment and human health - were sown back in the 1920s.
Pause to think: a normal healthy person can at the most go without food for perhaps seven days but it takes a full season, say around four months, for a seed to grow into food crop. Just five agri-biz corporations, all US based (Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels, et al), control global grain trade, and just five control global trade in seeds. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow Chemicals control genetically engineered seeds. While these powerful oligopolies were being knocked into place, anti-trust laws were diluted to exempt these firms. Engdahl writes, "It was not surprising that the Pentagon's National Defense University, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, issued a paper declaring: 'Agribiz is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East.' Agribusiness had become a strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world's only superpower." (page 143)
The "Green Revolution" was part of the Rockefeller agenda to destroy seed diversity and push oil-and-gas-based agriculture inputs in which the Rockefellers had a main interest. Destruction of seed diversity and dependence on proprietary hybrids was the first step in food control.
It is true that initially Green Revolution technologies led to a spurt in farm productivity but at a huge cost of destruction of farmlands, bio-diversity, poisoned aquifers and progressively poor health of the people, showing what was the true agenda of 'the proponents of the Green Revolution.'
The real impetus however came with the technological possibility of gene splicing and insertion of specific traits into unrelated species. Life forms could be altered. But until 1979, the US Government had steadfastly refused to grant any patent on life form. That was changed [my comment: helped much by a favorable judgment in the US Supreme Court granting patent protection to oil eating bacteria developed by Dr Ananda Chakraborty]. Life forms could now be patented. To ensure that the world surrendered to the patent regime of the seeds corporations, the World Trade Organization was knocked into shape. How it conducted business was nobody's business, but it forced the world to accept the intellectual property rights of these corporations. There is opposition but these firms are too determined, as Engdahl describes.
"The clear strategy of Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and the Washington government backing them was to introduce the GMO seeds in every corner of the globe, with priority on defenceless …. African and developing countries," writes Engdahl (page 270). However, Engdahl also describes how US and Canadian farmlands came under GMOs. It was suspected that GMO could pose a serious threat to human and animal health and the environment, yet efforts at independent biosafety assessment were discontinued. Scientists carrying out honest studies were vilified. Reputed scientific establishments were silenced or made to toe the line supportive of the Rockefeller's food control and mass culling agenda. The destruction of the credibility of scientific institution is yet another seed of destruction in Engdahl's book.
Engdahl cites the example of German farmer Gottfried Glockner's experience with GM corn. Glockner planted Bt176 event of Syngenta essentially as feed for his cows. Being a scientist, he started with 10% GM feed and gradually increased the proportion, carefully noting milk yield and any side effects. Nothing much happened in the first three years but when he increased the feed to 100% GM, his animals "were having gluey-white faeces and violent diarrhea" and their "milk contained blood." Eventually all his seventy cows died. Prof Angelika Hilbeck of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found from Glockner's Bt 176 corn samples, that Bt toxins were present "in active form
and extremely stable." The cows died of a high dose of toxins. Not if, but when human food is 100% contaminated should be a sobering thought.
In the US unlabelled GM foods were introduced in 1993 and that 70% of the supermarket foods contain GMOs in varying proportions in what should rightly be called the world's largest biological experiment on humans. While Engdahl has clearly stated that the thrust of US government and Agi-biz is control over food, especially in the
third world, he has left it to the readers to deduce that American and European citizens are also target of that grand agenda. And there are more lethal weapons in the arsenal: Terminator seeds, Traitor seeds, and the ability to destroy small independent farmers at will in any part of the world, and these are powerfully presented in the book. Engdahl provides hard evidence for these seeds of final destruction and utter decimation of world civilizations as we have known.
Seeds of Destruction is a complex but highly readable book. It is divided into five parts, each containing two to four short chapters. The first part deals with the political maneuverings to ensure support to Seed and Agri-biz firms, the second deals with what should be widely known as 'The Rockefeller Plan', the third deals with how vertically integrated giant corporations were readied for Washington's silent wars on planet earth, the fourth part deals with how GM seeds were unleashed on unsuspecting farmers, and the final part deals with how the elites' destroying food and farmers would eventually cause mass culling of population. He does not offer any solution; he can't because it is up to the rest of the world, including Europeans and Americans, to wake up and take on these criminals.
An essential read for anyone who eats and thinks.
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06.16.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:37 pm by Pit
EFSA approves bisglycinate mineral sources
Bisglycinates of calcium, magnesium, copper and zinc were deemed safe for use in foods and supplements by the Eurpoean Food Safety Authority's scientific panel on food additives and flavorings. No conclusion was reached on chromium glycinate nicotinate. Bisglycinates are chelates manufactured with glycine, an amino acid.
More than a hundred other mineral sources already in use in supplements for years still remain to be examined under the Food supplement directive's approval system.
All this to "ensure the safety" of food supplements, which are already safer even than foods, while approved and registered medicines continue to kill hundreds of thousands each year.
Legislative priorities these days seem to be determined by (pharmaceutical) lobby power.
US and Japan supplement industry forming health food alliance
The Council for Responsible Nutrition, the Natural Products Association and the National Nutritional Foods Association of Japan yesterday agreed to work together to better deal with regulatory and research issues. The cooperation will target greater efficiency in dealing with issues like health claims, food safety, and producing ingredients and supplements.
Belgium to reclassify herbs in supplements as medicines
The Belgian Federation for Food Supplements, Dietary and Organic Products (NAREDI) said AFMPS intended to delete "ambivalent plants" from a positive list of botanicals authorised for food supplements use under a 1997 Royal decree.
These are plants that have both medicinal and other uses such as food ingredients. Garlic is an example. NAREDI is concerned the Decree will restrict availability to many herbal products such as Valerian and Echinacea.
FDA 'user fee' for domestic and foreign supplement manufacturers proposed
The draft bill's provisions also give the FDA one-sided legal authority to recall contaminated "foods" and "unsafe medications." Currently, the Agency can only ask companies to withdraw a supplement product it deems to be a drug, an adulterated food, or unsafe for consumers. This new legislation would establish a group of inspectors to monitor companies that manufacture nutritional foods, supplements, drugs, and medical devices abroad. To fund these changes, and to pay for the expansion of FDA authority, the bill creates new FDA user fees for domestic and foreign manufacturers. Foreign companies importing supplements for distribution within the U.S. would also be required to register their products and production facilities with the FDA every year, and to pay a user fee.
Proposal: International Coalition For Scientific Integrity & Debate
"I am calling upon Doctors, Authors, Journalists, and Others that I can help promote within this Challenge and others. A Place where all groups can merge. And all Professionals can have a voice."
This organization will be strictly for Professionals. Scientists, Doctors, Researchers, Authors... Anyone with some form of education, participation, credentials, and/or professional standing in any field that can correlate with Scientific Integrity and Debate.
Copenhagen, September 2008: European Quantum Energy Medicine Conference
This year’s unique ”European Quantum Energy Medicine Conference” is being held in Copenhagen – and you are invited!
The terms ”Quantum Medicine” and ”Energy Medicine” include a very broad range of therapy forms, which are either wholly or partly based on measuring or manipulating the body’s energy and information systems. Some examples are acupuncture, homeopathy, bioresonance, healing, reflexology, treatment with sound, light, electro-magnetism and so on.
Irish Health Stores agree with Giscard d'Estaing: vote against Lisbon Treaty
The Irish Association of Health Stores has announced its opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. Heeding the words of one of the main architects of the Lisbon Treaty, Giscard d’Estaing, that ‘If people understood it they would vote against it’, the IAHS unanimously agreed to endorse a No vote in Thursday’s referendum, following a meeting of its National Council today.
“While not against the EU in principle, it is patently clear that Europe has not been good for the natural products industry, or for freedom of choice in healthcare,” said Jill Bell, IAHS President. “The Lisbon Treaty seems set to further facilitate erosion of individual rights and choices,” she added.
Irish EU vote lost, officials say
European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said all indications were that Ireland had indeed rejected the treaty. He called for other states to continue their ratification processes and said a solution should be sought.
The treaty must be ratified by all 27 members. Only Ireland has held a public vote on it.
The real scandal in this is that NONE of the 27 member states except Ireland thought it appropriate to ask their citizens before relinquishing substantial shares of national independence to a supernational entity that is itself clearly undemocratic.
Have we become of such little importance to the politicians?
Czech president says EU's Lisbon treaty finished
Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Friday that ratification of the European Union's Lisbon treaty could not continue after it was rejected by Irish voters.
The reform treaty has hit a potential stumbling block in the Czech Republic, where the upper house of parliament has asked the constitutional court to judge whether the charter is compatible with the country's constitution.
The Irish rejection is a huge setback to the treaty, which must be ratified by all 27 EU member states to come into force.
Video:Thank You Ireland
for voting No to the EU-treaty. "An amusing short video that deserves a wide audience", said a friend about this one.
While governments and parliaments across the continent rush to approve what no one read, we are little by little finding out what's in the treaty... The video by Jo Conrad is three and a half minutes of good information and - perhaps - a wake-up call for those still working to push approval through the "democratic" process...
Wildflower Extracts Easily Kill MRSA Superbug
Researchers found that extracts from Inula helenium (commonly known as elecampane, horse-heal or marchalan) eliminated 100 percent of MRSA colonies upon exposure.
I. helenium and another wildflower, known as Pulsatilla vulgaris or pasque flower, were tested against 300 different varieties of staphylococci bacteria, including MRSA. P. vulgaris also proved "highly effective" against MRSA.
Why Raw Milk is Healthier Than Pasteurized Milk
People, milk, and bacteria can coexist. It is normal for milk to contain some bacteria, and human societies have been benefiting from these bacteria in milk for thousands of years. Fermented milks, for instance, have superior nutrient value and digestibility. Today these products are marketed as containing "probiotics," as if this is something brand new.
Public obsession with killing bacteria misdirects efforts at improving public health -- because relatively few bacteria are pathogenic. By constantly sterilizing, pasteurizing, and disinfecting, the balance is actually tipped in favor of the pathogens.
India: Medicine plant claims to cure cancer
Though the plant, locally known as Zanlung Damdawi was traditionally used by the Hmar tribe inhabiting the southern district of Churachandpur since time immemorial for treating different ailments it was chance discovery by an 82 year old cancer patient, Mr Chawlien Hmar of Saikot village that catapulted it to its present miracle status. Mr Chawlien who was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour growth on his neck by Radiology department of RIMS turned to the herb out of sheer pain and lack of money to undergo an operation. He soon found that his pain disappeared and the swelling subsided and started relating the story to others.
No doubt in time someone in the West will do a study on the plant and find that it's quite useless. Can't have all that competition for the lucrative cancer chemicals market from a lowly plant now, can we?
Get a Little Sun This Summer – It Could Help Save Your Life
“The old theory was that if you had enough vitamin D to prevent rickets and osteomalacia, two skeletal disorders, you were okay,” said Victoria Drake, a research associate in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, and manager of its “Micronutrient Information Center. But new research is now raising our awareness about the possible relationships between vitamin D and cancer, particularly colorectal, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. There are also potential links to cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.”
Just as with vitamin D, I might add, there are other substances of vital importance that work better when taken in amounts that not only prevent overt deficiency but approach a largely unexplored and certainly unacknowledged optimum.
Vitamin C comes to mind...
Vitamin D: New way to treat heart failure?
About 5.3 million Americans have heart failure, a progressive, disabling condition in which the heart becomes enlarged as it is forced to work harder and harder, making it a challenge even to perform normal daily activities. Many people with heart disease or poorly controlled high blood pressure go on to experience a form of heart failure called congestive heart failure, in which the heart's inability to pump blood around the body causes weakness and fluid build-up in lungs and limbs. Many people with heart failure, who tend to be older, have been found to be deficient in vitamin D.
Synthetic vitamin B1 marketed with false claims
Benfotiamine is a synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1). It is marketed heavily as a dietary supplement using a selection of unsubstantiated, 'not-quite-medical' claims that tend to characterize this field. A large part of this campaign has been built around the belief that benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and, therefore, more physiologically active. Scientific research led by Dr Lucien Bettendorff of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Liège, Belgium, has entirely disproved these claims.
Do Nanoparticles in Food Pose a Health Risk?
Friends of the Earth (FoE) reports that none of the more than 100 food or food-related products it identified that contain nanoparticles—puny particles between 100 and one nanometers—bears a warning label or has undergone safety testing by government agencies.
"Products created using nanotechnology have entered the food chain," says report author Ian Illuminato, FoE's health and environment lobbyist. "Preliminary studies indicate there is a serious risk…. We should know that it's safe before we put it in our food."
US Senator Grassley Probes Paxil Suicide Risks
The Republican Senator from Iowa wants the agency to “carefully scrutinize” info from Glaxo after reviewing a report about suicide risks among adults using the antidepressant. Chuck has also asked the FDA to review findings released earlier this year by UK regulators, which charged the drugmaker with knowing about suicide risks in children since 1998.
Proposition 65 - Nutrients Cancer Causing?
Proposition 65 was approved by California voters in 1986 in the belief that its passage would help protect them from toxic chemicals in the environment. Prop 65 requires the State to publish a list of those chemicals "known" to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. This list is updated at least annually and has ballooned to include some 775 chemicals. Although Prop 65 uses the term "known," in the real world substances on the list are not necessarily known to cause cancer but are only those that could, under certain circumstances, pose a risk of cancer.
The list includes some beneficial nutrients as "known to cause cancer" and the idea is to limit those nutrients to "bare minimum" RDA dosage. It seems that the original intent of proposition 65, to limit exposure to cancer causing chemicals in the environment, isn't served well by including nutrients as chemicals to avoid.
Warning issued for silver dental fillings
FDA was sued to admit mercury is dangerous. They fancied they had no chance of winning, so they settled and promised warnings. See how, in this article, FDA and dentists spin the issue:
- The warning is not aimed at the general population...
- That does not mean it truly harms...
- The agency still is studying
- The hardened mixture makes the mercury less absorbable by the body than the kind found in fish...
Dr. Edmond Hewlett, a dental professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an American Dental Association adviser: "We don't want these choices taken away based on junk science. We don't want them taken away based on misguided fears."
Professor Edzard Ernst: Master Trickster of Evidence-based Medicine? (PDF)
Robert Verkerk analyzes some of the "tricks of the trade" of this avowed skeptic who has made it his job to denigrate natural health in the form of "complementary medicine".
Applying a whole different set of criteria to natural medicine than that applied to conventional medicine, Ernst's methodology takes on the classic signs of the very trickery he says non-pharmaceutical forms of medicine use.
Chronic muscle diseases associated with statin exposure
Statin use is twice as high in patients with chronic muscle diseases as in unaffected controls, according to a report in the May issue of the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Some clinical reports have suggested that statins can trigger chronic muscle diseases, including dermatomyositis and polymyositis, the authors explain, but no previous study has investigated exposure to statins in patients who develop a chronic muscle disease.
There are literally hundreds of reports of people having sudden muscle problems after starting statins, on some articles on this site. See Lipitor:
Side Effects And Natural Remedy and
Lipitor - The Human Cost.
Harvard Psychiatrists Fail to Reveal $3.2 Million Payola
Senator Chuck Grassley has uncovered evidence showing that these renowned Harvard child psychiatrists, recipients of substantial federal grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, failed to disclose at least $3.2 million dollars they had received from drug companies between 2000 and 2007.
How the wrong drugs could be causing your depression
'A study by an American psychiatrist found that more than 10 per cent of patients diagnosed with mental illness are actually suffering from an underlying physical condition, such as a heart murmur or a mineral deficiency such as calcium or magnesium that causes depression-like symptoms,' says Professor Plant.
Thyroid problems can also cause depression.
Another study found that more than 40 per cent of patients diagnosed as depressed at one medical practice were found to have been taking medication that causes depression as a side effect.
No Child Left Undrugged
4-year-old Rebecca Riley died from an overdose of psychiatric drugs. At age 2, Rebecca was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). At 3, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. By the time she died on Dec. 13, 2006, little Rebecca was taking Clonidine, as well as the anti-convulsant Depakote and the anti-psychotic Seroquel.
What were some of the symptoms that prompted such treatment plans? As her mother described it, Rebecca was “constantly getting into things, running around, not being able to settle down.”
It seems we may well deserve every bit of poisoning we're subjected to by pharmaceutical drugs. We are asking for it. Here is a mother getting her children drugged because they are acting like children will act.
Legal Prescription Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal Drugs, Florida Says
An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.
The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids - strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin - caused 2,328.
Medics held in Italy murder probe
Two senior doctors at the Santa Rita private clinic in Milan have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Eleven others, including the director of the clinic, have been put under house arrest. They are being held on suspicion of offences including manslaughter, bodily harm and health-care system fraud. Police say five elderly patients died after undergoing unnecessary operations.
Book:The Ultimate Conspiracy - The Biomedical Paradigm
Louise Mclean says:
This is an incredible book which centres around the fraudulent biomedical paradigm that has fooled so many people for so long. McCumiskey shreds all the Medical Myths one by one - Germ Theory, Vaccination, AIDS, Bird Flu...
Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits
In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa.
There Will Be No Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic, Experts Admit
“A 25-year health campaign was misplaced outside the continent of Africa.” the article concedes, daring you hang them all. And so they’re quick to add a massive fiction: “But the disease still kills more than all wars and conflicts”
The authorities explain that they misled the entire world, for decades, because admitting the grandeur of their farce would have encouraged their critics: “Any revision of the threat was liable to be seized on by those who rejected HIV as the cause of the disease.”
Of course! We’ve got to protect flawed science from criticism!
WHO SAYS that WE’VE BEEN VERY WRONG about HIV and AIDS?
Reality has now intruded so forcibly that De Cock can no longer avoid the fact that AIDS epidemics have not happened, those epidemics that he and his cohorts prophesied with such overweening confidence for more than two decades. But— cognitive dissonance once again!—he also cannot recognize that this fact undermines the whole HIV/AIDS scenario. De Cock describes as “four malignant arguments” some certifiable truths cited by critics: that official data have inflated all HIV/AIDS estimates and that HIV/AIDS has diverted funds from such obvious needs as malaria prevention and the provision of clean water and food, building infrastructure, and sensible public-health programs; even then, plain reality forces De Cock to admit that there are “elements of truth” in these criticisms.
Cell Phones Pop Corn, Toast Brains
Because of the weight of evidence on both sides, most sources consider the jury still out on the safety issue. If you want to believe cell phones are safe, you can find supporting data. If you choose to believe they pose a threat, there's plenty of evidence, too. But meanwhile, there's the popcorn videos to consider, and the evidence of your own senses. Some of us, at least, notice tingling or headaches after even brief cell-phone use. Still, we've developed the cell-phone habit and kicking it seems unthinkable -- head tingling be damned. So we hope for the best and use headsets just in case.
Germany bans Bayer pesticide to save honey bees
The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) suspended the registration of eight neonicotinoid pesticide seed treatment products used in oilseed rape and sweetcorn. a few weeks after honeybee keepers in the southern state of Baden Württemberg reported a wave of honeybee deaths linked to one of the pesticides, clothianidin.
The incriminating evidence was so convincing that a press release from the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI), the German federal agricultural research agency, stated: “It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from the corn seeds.” Tests on dead bees showed that 99 percent had a build-up of clothianidin.
Mosquitos Develop Resistance to Treated Nets
As the fight against malaria gains ground, studies are showing that mosquitoes that transmit the disease are beginning to gain resistance against the commonly used pyrethroid insecticides. "Generally, the results showed a trend of increase in mosquito resistance status with cross-resistance against all the three pyrethroid insecticides.
Swiss moratorium on GM crops extended
The Council imposed a moratorium on the commercial cultivation of GM crops in 2005, on the basis that there was no demand for them in Switzerland at the time and that big gaps remained in scientific knowledge about the risks of this technology. Shortly after that, the research programme was launched, and this is expected to reach a conclusion around the middle of 2012. Questions over the biological safety of GM plants and the coexistence of GM, conventional and organic crops are being addressed.
Rome Food Crisis Summit Ducks Crucial Issues
On the most contentious issue - biofuels - the suggestion by an FAO working party that international standards be established to ensure biofuels were not produced at the expense of the world's hungry has been ignored. Instead there is some watered-down prose on "the challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels".
India: GM Crops Not the Solution for Food Price Inflation
"There is no concrete evidence that GM crops increase production. They only control insects, which can well be done by some other organic methods," Kerala Biodiversity Board Chairman V S Vijayan said.
"The biosafety laws have also been diluted. While genetic engineering is a process, which impacts the metabolism and physiology of the whole organism, the transgene has been defined as an event, separating it from its interactions with the organism in an amendment in June 2006," said Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, an NGO promoting organic cultivation.
The Food, Climate, & Energy Crisis: From Panic to Organic
Fortunately, there are hopeful signs that we can move beyond crisis to positive solutions. Connecting the dots in our food-climate-energy crisis, millions of green consumers are voting with their dollars for foods and products that are healthy, locally produced, energy efficient, and eco-friendly.
Bill in US Congress would Replace Corporate Dominated 'Free Trade' with Fair Trade
Endorsed by more than a dozen fair trade groups, the TRADE ACT is a first of its kind pro-trade bill that would revamp U.S. trade policy. The bill would mandate trade pact reviews, establish standards, protect workers in developing nations, and would help restore Congressional oversight of future trade agreements.
"Trade done right means new jobs and new industry at home and means lifting up workers in developing nations," Brown said. "For too long our nation's trade policy has exploited workers, betrayed middle class families, and destroyed communities. It is time for a trade policy that works for everyone, not just a few."
To Bee Organic or not to Bee - Colony Collapse epidemic worsening
Organic farms are proving to be sanctuaries for the honeybee from the ravages of CCD. The honeybees are exquisite social animals perfectly adapted for pollination and honey making, but far too delicate to withstand the onslaught of systemic pesticides and GM crops. Regulators are slow to control the environmental insults to the honeybees and unprepared to act on the precautionary principle. Saving the honeybee may be among the most compelling reasons to shift comprehensively to organic agriculture.
Has global warming research misinterpreted cloud behavior?
Spencer and his co-author, principal research scientist William (Danny) Braswell, used a simple climate model to demonstrate that something as seemingly innocuous as daily random variations in cloud cover can cause year-to-year variation in ocean temperature that looks like -- but isn't -- "positive cloud feedback," a warmth-magnifying process that exists in all major climate models.
"Our paper is an important step toward validating a gut instinct that many meteorologists like myself have had over the years," said Spencer, "that the climate system is dominated by stabilizing processes, rather than destabilizing processes -- that is, negative feedback rather than positive feedback."
- - -
More information out there...
There is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.
You can subscribe to the Zeus Newsletterhere. Appears twice monthly. If you would like to see some samples of Louise's collection of informative links, here are the archives.
Dr Mercola's health blog and Mike Adams' Natural News have great health information.
The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is a place where you can discuss and exchange information on what is happening in the world of natural health.
For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.
If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News.
A few sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't necessarily find on your tv or in the papers:
http://therealnews.com/
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/
... and remember:
The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition
Permalink
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06.10.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:34 pm by Pit
Medical treatments, pharmaceutical drugs and decisions based on wrong information are responsible for causing an epidemic of disease throughout the western world.
This is how Nexus Magazine introduces an article by Walter Last, a biochemist and research chemist who worked at several German universities and at Bio-Science Laboratories in Los Angeles. Last analyzes some of the glaring inconsistencies which a unique combination of pharmaceutical funding and a business approach to disease have produced in western medicine.
THE NATURAL WAY TO HEAL - by Walter Last
The article as published by Nexus is available on Walter Last's website and I suggest you take the time to read the original with citation of the documents it is based on. You can find it here:
http://www.health-science-spirit.com/medicaldisease.html
Some relevant excerpts:
The Antibiotic Syndrome
Candidiasis is not the only side-effect of antibiotic treatment, and antibiotics are not the only drugs that cause such problems. Drugs used in chemotherapy, anti-inflammatory steroidal drugs and other long-term drug therapies tend to kill or suppress the natural intestinal bacteria, and yeast, parasites and harmful bacteria start taking over. This is then called dysbiosis. Most patients receive such drugs in hospitals and can be expected to develop systemic Candida overgrowth as a result.
Our natural intestinal flora, mainly based on lactobacteria, not only helps to digest and absorb food, it also protects us against ingested harmful bacteria that otherwise may cause food poisoning. With a healthy intestinal flora millions of salmonella bacteria may be needed to cause an infection but with dysbiosis only tens of salmonella would be required.
Autoimmune Diseases and Asthma
Antibiotics are also a major contributing cause of asthma. Children who received broad-spectrum antibiotics were about 9 times more likely to suffer from asthma.
- - -
Cancer and Leukemia
Chemotherapy commonly leads to systemic Candida infections, which greatly limit the success rate of the treatment. Long-term follow-up studies show that children develop 18 times more secondary malignant tumors later in life, girls face a 75 times higher risk of breast cancer by the time they are 40, while the risk of developing leukemia after chemotherapy for ovarian cancer increased 21-fold. Also other tumors commonly develop after treating malignancies with chemotherapy. A main problem appears to be the development of deep or systemic Candida infections shortly after starting chemotherapy.
Root Canals
Root-canal filled teeth are a variation of the theme of intestinal dysbiosis. They, too, appear to be a major contributing factor in many health problems, not only cancer but also heart disease, arthritis, kidney disease and auto-immune diseases. This is due to microbes that multiply in the multitude of tiny canals or tubules in the dentine and gradually leach out into the lymph system. Even normally harmless microbes become very dangerous and more virulent and toxic under the anaerobic conditions in dead teeth.
Iatrogenic Heart Attacks
One hundred years ago heart attacks were almost unknown despite diets generally being high in saturated fats. The ascent of heart attacks began with the pasteurization of milk and the use of chlorine to kill bacteria in public water supplies. This began around 1900 and was generally accepted in Western countries in the 1920's. From 1920 onwards the explosive increase in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and fatal heart attacks began, but only in countries that chlorinated their water supplies. These diseases remained unknown, for instance, in Africa, China, Japan, and other parts of ASIA.
Sunlight
Health authorities and medical associations have campaigned strongly to avoid sun exposure of the skin. Presumably this causes skin cancer, including melanoma that can kill. However, the vast majority is normal skin cancer that almost never kills, and there is widespread doubt that melanomas are really caused by normal sun exposure, although there seems to be a link with sunburn. Generally outdoor workers with the most sun exposure had the lowest rates of skin cancer and melanoma, while melanomas often show up in office workers.
Now more and more research papers show that a vast number of diseases, and especially cancer, could be avoided by greatly increasing our levels of vitamin D with suitable foods, supplements, and frequent or daily short sun exposure of the skin. Sunlight is our main source of vitamin D.
Vaccinations
A curios aspect of vaccine safety statistics was highlighted by Dr Archie Kalokerinos. Working in the remote Australian outback with Aboriginals he found that every second child died as a result of vaccinations. Because deaths commonly occurred about 3 weeks later, they were not recorded as vaccine-related; officially reactions were limited to occur only for up to 2 weeks after vaccination. However, eventually Dr Kalokerinos solved the problem by giving babies high doses of vitamin C before vaccinations, and no more vaccination deaths occurred. Also SIDS disappeared.
Bias Against Natural Therapies
One of the methods increasingly used to denigrate natural therapies is for the pharmaceutical industry to finance shoddy research on natural remedies and then proclaim them to be ineffective or harmful. This is only partly intended to influence the general public but mainly to provide the justification for health authorities to outlaw and greatly restrict natural remedies.
Another strategy is not to list favorable vitamin studies in the MEDLINE database. This is taxpayer-funded and operated by the US National Library of Medicine. It lists all articles by medical research journals, including Time magazine and Readers' Digest, but not the peer-reviewed Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine (http://www.orthomed.org/jom/jomlist.htm) which specializes in vitamin research.
In concluson, Last suggests a four point program for reversing the deadly trend of western medicine:
1. Phase out public assistance for pharmaceutical companies and their research, and require research to show that a drug is safe with long-term use in combination with other common drugs and chemicals and with old or fragile patients, or alternatively that it is superior in the long-term to available natural treatments
2. Make it illegal for pharmaceutical companies to fund medical education or provide drug information, marketing or incentives directly to the public or to medical practitioners, or to employ former health officials. Information to medical practitioners should be provided by an independent and impartial body
3. Except for unethical conduct according to general society standards, make it illegal for medical associations to restrict the therapies used by their members
4. Afford qualified practitioners of natural medicine the same recognition and opportunities as those of drug medicine, including in hospitals, rehabilitation, research and publications, health departments and regulating authorities
The full article is here: http://www.health-science-spirit.com/medicaldisease.html
About the author:
Walter Last worked as a biochemist and research chemist in the medical departments of several German universities and at Bio-Science Laboratories in Los Angeles, USA. Later he worked as a nutritionist and natural therapist in New Zealand and in Australia, where he is now based. He no longer has a clinic.
Walter Last has written numerous health-related journal articles as well as several books, including Heal Yourself and Healing Foods (Penguin). Presently in print are The Natural Way to Heal and the Heal Yourself series - seven small books about overcoming specific diseases such as arthritis, asthma, cancer, candida, diabetes and weight problems.
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06.08.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:33 pm by Pit
European consumer organizations urge Irish voters to say "No" to Lisbon Treaty
Consumer organizations and NGOs in Europe warn of a growing democratic deficit in Europe and urge Irish voters to say NO to the treaty of Lisbon. No other country of Europe's 25 is permitting their people to vote on the issue, even tough the people of France and the Netherlands resoundingly rejected a similar proposal two years ago.
Copenhagen Consensus 2008The world’s best investment: Vitamins for undernourished children
Over two years, more than 50 economists have worked to find the best solutions to ten of the world’s biggest challenges. During the last week of May, an expert panel of 8 top-economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, sat down to assess the research.
The result: A prioritized list highlighting the potential of 30 specific solutions to combat some of the biggest challenges facing the world.
Combating malnutrition in the 140 million children who are undernourished reached the number one spot, after economist Sue Horton of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada made her case to the expert panel.
Providing micronutrients for 80% of the 140 million children who lack essential vitamins in the form of vitamin A capsules and a course of zinc supplements would cost just $60 million per year, according to the analysis. More importantly, this action holds yearly benefits of more than $1 billion.
Study links vitamin D, type 1 diabetes
In this new study, the researchers found that populations living at or near the equator, where there is abundant sunshine (and ultraviolet B irradiance) have low incidence rates of type 1 diabetes. Conversely, populations at higher latitudes, where available sunlight is scarcer, have higher incidence rates. These findings add new support to the concept of a role of vitamin D in reducing risk of this disease.
Pomegranate extract good for joint health
"The results of these translational studies and studies reported previously together provide strong and compelling evidence to support further clinical testing of pomegranate extract for the prevention of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis," wrote lead author Meenakshi Shukla from Case Western Reserve University and the University Hospitals of Cleveland.
Pomegranate, a rich source of antioxidants, has been linked to improved heart health, but a growing body of science indicates the fruit protect against prostate cancer and slowing cartilage loss in arthritis.
HDL Cholesterol May Not Help The Heart After All
The good cholesterol that scientists have thought helped unclog arteries had no effect on heart disease in a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, casting doubt on a theory drugmakers have spent more than $1 billion pursuing...
Drinking or even showering in tap water can double the risk of having deformed children, says study
A study of almost 400,000 babies found a clear link between chemicals formed during chlorination and the occurrence of a trio of birth defects.
It is thought the chemicals may harm the unborn baby directly. Alternatively they may damage the woman's eggs. Although the study did not prove that the chemicals caused the birth defects, it is not the first to make the link.
FDA Must Classify Mercury Fillings
On Monday, June 2, we settled our lawsuit, Moms Against Mercury et al. v. Von Eschenbach, Commissioner, et al. FDA will finish classifying within one year of the close of the public comment period on its amalgam policy, that is, by July 28, 2009.
There’s more good news. During a several hour negotiation session, FDA agreed to change its website on amalgam -- dramatically. Gone, gone, gone are all of FDA’s claims that no science exists that amalgam is unsafe, or that other countries have acted for environmental reasons only, or that the 2006 Scientific Panel vote affirmed amalgam’s safety.
PDF of full story
Mercury teeth fillings may harm some: U.S. FDA
"Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses," the FDA said in a notice on its Web site.
"Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner," the agency said.
Cancer Research: More Profit Than Progress
Taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars on Cancer research, AIDS research and mental illness research. Yet, there is little evidence demonstrating that this largely commercial enterprise has borne clinically beneficial fruits. The consensus of the world's biggest gathering of cancer specialists, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, concedes that "when looking at the overall picture there has been shockingly little progress."
Psychiatrists Fail to Reveal Drug Pay
New York Times - (may require you to register)
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators.
Drug companies pay famous psychiatrists to grease the wheels and here we go - drugging a whole generation of children.
We need a hundred Grassleys all over the world...
New Mexico: Pro Aspartame Legislators fail in reelection bid
Two New Mexico senators who opposed a bill that would have put the artificial sweetener aspartame out of business in the state, Shannon Robinson and Dan Foley, failed to get re-elected according to Stephen Fox, who campaigned for the bill's passage.
Kidney Patients Should be Notified of Potential Risk from Fluorides and Fluoridated Drinking Water
A new position paper from the National Kidney Foundation concludes that individuals with chronic kidney disease should be notified of the potential risk from exposure to fluorides. The document acknowledges gaping holes in research concerning kidney impacts from fluorides, lending new ammunition to the growing numbers of cities, health professionals, water agencies, and citizens who question industry and government assertions that water fluoridation has been proven safe.
Mental Illness or Social Sickness?
While medical diagnoses are based on science, psychiatric “diagnoses” are not at all scientific. They do not reveal what is wrong, what is the preferred treatment, and what is the likely outcome. Nor are they reliable. Different psychiatrists who examine the same patient typically offer different “diagnoses.” Moreover, psychiatric “diagnoses” move in and out of favor, depending on a variety of social factors.
Paxil Babies: The Dangers of Antidepressants
We have all heard about "crack babies" (newborns addicted to crack cocaine because their mothers were using it during pregnancy). What about "Paxil babies"?
Two major studies comparing the health of newborns from depressed mothers who took antidepressants versus newborns of depressed mothers who did not take antidepressants show that newborns are better off with mothers not taking antidepressants.
Bipolar Disorder: Epidemic Without a Disease
"The disease is hard to pin down." "Its unclear how they (the drugs) work." This is not medical science, it is the "medical-speak" of "biological," psychiatry that is deceptive, fraudulent, and intent on peddling drugs. When, the patient is known to be normal but is called "diseased" and is "medicated," is that not poisoning? Is it not assault and battery? If the same patient dies, what is that called?
Atlanta: State mental hospital's problems caused preventable deaths
Federal investigators, the letter said, found that medical and nursing care "substantially depart from generally accepted professional standards." They also determined that the hospital provides inadequate psychiatric treatment; uses seclusion and restraint, including sedatives, inappropriately; and fails to "adequately protect its patients from harm."
AIDS: FOLLOW THE MONEY
So the Global Fund’s allocation to Kyrgyzstan, at $29 million, represents about $150,000 per death and about $7000 per patient. While that may seem excessively generous, perhaps it was goided by the budgeting of the National Institutes of Health, which called in 2007 for about $180,000 per AIDS death in the United States (allocaitons for other diseases were, for example, just under $10,000 per cancer death and $2600 per cardiovascular death.
Why UNAIDS should be disbanded
“UNAIDS — the U.N.’s specialist AIDS advocacy body — has raised some US$110 billion for the next five years: . . . AIDS will shortly become the biggest single item in foreign aid. . . . UNAIDS has systematically exaggerated the size and trend of the pandemic, in addition to hyping the potential for HIV epidemics in ‘general’ populations. . . . But UNAIDS’s claims are not supported by the epidemiologic data.
Generation X-Ray - Child victims of Technological abuse
No sane parent would submit his child to 1600 chest X-rays over a 24 hour period. Yet a mere 24 hours of wireless phone radiation can inflict the same damage to a child’s tissues as 1600 chest X-rays. This is the crux of studies completed by 12 groups of researchers from seven European countries who collaborated in the REFLEX study project to gauge the effects of wireless radiation on human health.
The U.S. government allowed wireless phones to be put on the market in the 1980s with absolutely no safety testing. Today, REFLEX research demonstrates that Wi-phones blasting high-frequency microwaves are basically personal X-ray devices. This shocking reality gives rise to the term "Generation X-ray."
The Cell Phone and the Cell - the Role of Calcium
Alternating electromagnetic fields such as those from mobile telecommunications have many seemingly unrelated effects on health, including the promotion of cancer, reductions in fertility and various brain disorders. This article explains how almost all of them may stem from a common cause; i.e. the removal of divalent ions such as calcium from cell membranes.
The recent increases in allergies and allergy-related conditions may also be due to membrane leakage. Our bodies are normally protected from the ingress of foreign materials by "tight junction" barriers where the gaps between the cells are sealed. They occur in the brain, skin, nose, lungs and gut. Mobile phone radiation or the chemical removal of calcium makes them more permeable to large molecules and can let in allergens, toxins and carcinogens.
Stung by losses, nation's beekeepers try to rebuild
Jeff Pettis, lead researcher at the service's Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, Md., who conducted the survey, said there are no clear-cut answers. "We don't have one thing we can point to; we're looking at a lot of combinations," Pettis said. "It's a combination of some primary stress on the colony that could include low-level pesticide exposure, poor nutrition, Varroa mites — or something else — that allow visitors to take advantage of a weakened host. Then we're seeing a secondary invader actually kill the colony." Despite plenty of attention for several years, the problem is still growing.
What about
electromagnetic radiation as a weakening influence. There seems to be a real reluctance to even consider that possibility. Perhaps the billions governments rake in from selling "spectrum" to mobile operators preclude entertaining that there could be anything wrong with electromagnetic pollution?
Verichip: Implantable chip manufacturer in financial doldrums
VeriChip’s media efforts have done little to salvage the company’s public image or its financial performance, both of which plummeted after research linking the implantable microchip to cancer was widely revealed by the Associated Press in September 2007. The same company that once predicted revenues in the “billions” earned just $3,000 from its microchip implant operations in the first quarter of 2008, as patients shun the device that many are now calling the “cancer chip.”
Ban GMO Now Says Institute of Science in Society
The best thing about the human genome project is to finally explode the myth of genetic determinism, revealing the layers of molecular complexity that transmit, interpret and rewrite the genetic texts. These processes are precisely orchestrated and finely tuned by the organism as a whole, in a highly coordinated molecular ‘dance of life’ that’s necessary for survival.
In contrast, genetic engineering in the laboratory is crude, imprecise and invasive. The rogue genes inserted into a genome to make a GMO could land anywhere; typically in a rearranged or defective form, scrambling and mutating the host genome, and have the tendency to move or rearrange further once inserted, basically because they do not know the dance of life. That’s ultimately why genetic modification doesn’t work and is also dangerous.
Bananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture
So, what solution is being bandied about for the coming tragic loss of bananas five to twenty years from now? This is even scarier than all that Chiquita has done to this point. The primary suggestion offered is genetic engineering. Scientists are already at work mapping the banana's genome. Already, there are genetic experiments to modify bananas with the hepatitis B vaccine and with fish. That this sort of solution is nothing more than the next, utterly insane, step in a food system already mad with monoculture seems to be of no concern. The time of the mad scientist is now.
Farmers and Food Activists Expelled from Hunger Summit
Farmer and civil society leaders carrying out a peaceful action today in Rome, Italy at the FAO Summit on the Food Crisis were forcefully removed from the premises. At around 1:30pm farmers and representatives of civil society organisations staged an action at the press room to deliver a message that millions of additional people are joining the ranks of the hungry as the corporations that control the global food system are making record profits.
World Leaders Warned of Phony Solutions to Global Food Crisis
Friends of the Earth is today issuing a stark warning to world leaders attending the United Nations food security conference in Rome that biofuels, GM and international trade liberalisation are false solutions to the current global food crisis that will push millions more people into hunger and poverty while worsening climate change.
The Food Crisis: Destroying African Agriculture
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.
Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets.
What should we think of free trade?
“The closer the economy approaches the scale of the whole Earth the more it will have to conform to the physical behavior mode of the Earth. That behavior mode is a steady state—a system that permits qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth. Growth is more of the same stuff; development is the same amount of better stuff (or at least different stuff).”
Herman Daly writes about the advisability of "free trade" policy as it is practiced today, where not only goods but also capital (and to some degree labor) is mobile...
Daly's thinking backs what I said in an earlier article on this site: Free Trade is not the solution
31,000 scientists reject 'global warming'
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
So much for a media manufactured "consensus" on humans causing global warming.
- - -
More information out there...
There is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.
You can subscribe to the Zeus Newsletterhere. Appears twice monthly. If you would like to see some samples of Louise's collection of informative links, here are the archives.
Dr Mercola's health blog and Mike Adams' Natural News have great health information.
The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is a place where you can discuss and exchange information on what is happening in the world of natural health.
For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.
If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News.
A few sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't necessarily find on your tv or in the papers:
http://therealnews.com/
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/
... and remember:
The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition
Permalink
Comments off
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