MRSA Superbug Invades Public Schools as Conventional Medicine Ignores Natural Cures

NaturalNews.com

by Mike Adams

Schools in at least eight states have reported confirmed cases of students being infected with the "superbug" known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) following the death of a 17-year old Virginia student late last year, and the deaths of a New Hampshire preschooler and an 11-year-old from Mississippi a week earlier. MRSA, it seems, is taking hold in the U.S. population.

In addition to the cases in those states, schools in North Carolina, West Virginia and Connecticut have reported infections among their students, and a high school district in Tucson, Arizona sent a letter home to parents advising them that one student had been infected and another suspected case was awaiting confirmation. In Chicago, officials at Naperville High School did not become aware that there had been two cases of MRSA among football players there in the previous month until an athletic trainer learned of the incidents and reported them to the administration.

MRSA is a strain of the common bacterium that causes "staph" infections. While such infections are normally easy to treat with a variety of antibiotics, MRSA is resistant to these medications. MRSA is easily killed, of course, by natural medicines such as colloidal silver, aloe vera gel, garlic or any number of additional antibacterial medicines from Mother Nature, but doctors and hospitals don't use medicine from Mother Nature, so they suffer under the illusion that MRSA has "no cure" and can't be effectively treated. The limitations of antibiotic chemicals, it seems, have become the mental limitations of physicians, too.

What is MRSA?

MRSA was first identified in the United States in 1968. The staph bacteria, which occurs naturally on human skin and in nasal passages, can cause minor infections of the skin or other soft tissue if it enters an open wound. In rare cases, however, the bacteria becomes "invasive," colonizing another part of the body. In these cases, the staph bacteria can infect the bloodstream, urinary tract, lungs or other organs and lead to potentially fatal complications, including pneumonia or the state of whole-body inflammation known as sepsis. Even in less severe cases, a staph infection can lead to skin necrosis and the development of painful abscesses.

Staph infections can be spread by skin-to-skin contact or by sharing a towel with an infected person. This makes staph epidemics particularly likely in institutional settings like hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, sports facilities and schools. In schools, athletes are particularly at risk - the crowding and lack of hygiene in gyms and locker rooms provide a perfect breeding ground for MRSA.

"These situations set up the perfect scenario for the organism to invade the skin," said Dr. Pascal James Imperato, former commissioner of public health for New York City and chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. "In this setting, you have sweat and good exposure to skin. With youths who play football or lacrosse, the skin might also be cut or scraped, making the skin more vulnerable."

In response to the recent death of a student from MRSA, students in Bedford County, Virginia, demanded that their schools be sterilized. After students organized themselves over text messages and the internet to protest the unsanitary conditions at their schools - including taking the Bedford County Schools Superintendent on a tour of one high school to demonstrate the problem - the schools agreed to comply with their demands. All 21 schools in the county were closed, scrubbed and sanitized on October 17. Schools were also sanitized in Indiana and West Virginia, with a particular emphasis on locker rooms and gyms.

In Illinois, state officials are considering a recommendation that would specifically encourage health care officials to report any cluster of MRSA - defined as three or more cases - in an institutional setting. This rule is intended to alert health officials to any potential epidemics in the making, before the infection spreads too widely. The recommendation was prompted by the recognition that it took officials at Naperville High School weeks to learn about the two infections in their football team, and the fact that infections diagnosed at off-site health care facilities may never be reported to the school.

MRSA now killing more Americans than AIDS

Concern over MRSA infections has increased not only from the recent deaths of grade-school students, but also by a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report concluded that MRSA infection is far more common in the United States than previously thought, and that it kills more people yearly than AIDS, emphysema, Parkinson's disease or homicide.

The CDC calculated that deaths from MRSA in the United States may amount to nearly 19,000 people yearly, although the agency added that it can be hard to determine if death is caused directly by the disease or merely accelerated by it. The CDC estimated the infection rate at 32 per 100,000 people, making even the rate of invasive MRSA higher than the combined rate of other invasive bacterial conditions, including bloodstream infections, meningitis and flesh-eating strep.

While MRSA is still most common in hospital settings, it is becoming increasingly common outside the health-care world as well. "Now we know there's also a community-acquired strain of MRSA," Imperato said. "That doesn't mean that it hasn't always existed. It's just that now, we have become knowledgeable about it."

Imperato said that staying clean - whether that means health-care professionals washing hands or athletes showering immediately after exercise - is the best way to avoid spreading MRSA.

"Good old-fashioned cleanliness serves as the best barrier to these organisms," he said. "Just washing with ordinary soap and water is enough to remove any of the organisms that may have colonized in the skin."

Why conventional medicine is clueless to stop MRSA

Conventional medicine has not merely failed to stop MRSA, it has in fact accelerated the development of MRSA through rampant use of chemical antibiotics. This created the perfect environment in which MRSA superbugs could grow and escape outside the hospitals, into "the wild," as it's called by infectious disease experts.

Even worse, doctors and hospitals have so far refused to treat MRSA with anything that actually works. Instead of looking to Mother Nature, where cures for MRSA are as common as weeds (literally!), arrogant doctors and Western medical researchers continue to foolishly believe that only synthetic, patented chemical antibiotics have any use whatsoever, and that anything from nature couldn't possibly be of any help.

They also don't appear to show any interest whatsoever in the technology of colloidal silver, a substance that quickly kills not just MRSA, but ALL antibiotic-resistant infectious strains. A quick wipe-down of hospitals, schools and gyms with colloidal silver would halt these MRSA infections in their tracks. Colloidal silver can also be used topically, on MRSA skin infections, where it quickly kills bacteria without any negative side effects whatsoever. One source I recommend, by the way, is www.Silver100.com

Consider this for a moment: Every plant in the world grows its own antibacterial medicine. If it didn't, bacteria would eat it up within hours. This is especially true of the roots of plants, because roots have to survive the onslaught of soil bacteria (which are present in very high numbers unless the soil has been treated with chemical pesticides, of course). Roots, therefore, contain powerful antibacterial medicine.

Doctors don't like to admit Mother Nature has already developed this technology that continues to elude the "best and brightest minds" in modern medicine. What's at stake here, of course, is the ego and pride of the whole system of Western medicine. If doctors, hospitals and researchers have to admit that Mother Nature has already engineered thousands of different cures for MRSA, then it sort of makes doctors look stupid for a couple of reasons. One, it means that plants are better at making medicine than drug companies (which, of course, they are), and two, it means all the doctors who have been holding out for the next "wonder" drug while overlooking the simple, natural cures available in their back yard begin to look like irrational defenders of a nearly-useless system of pharmaceutical medicine (which, of course, they are as well).

So there's a mass delusion being played out by Western medicine today where doctors pretend natural medicine doesn't exist and thereby claim that MRSA has no cure. This is the fountain of stupidity from which our current MRSA problems have sprung. Instead of using what works, modern medical hacks are more interested in protecting their intellectual territory, thereby denying patients access to (or knowledge of) those things that could reduce suffering or even save their lives. And thus, the bewildered, fumbling "experts" of Western medicine continue the charade of looking for the next great antibiotic medicine that will finally conquer MRSA, even while cures for MRSA are so common that you can't take a walk in the woods or a city park without seeing hundreds or thousands of them. (Those trained in Western medicine are literally blind to nature.)

What they conveniently forget, of course, is the simple fact that clever MRSA bacteria will mutate a new resistance to the next billion dollar antibiotic medicine in about a day or so. And that means that all the self-proclaimed brilliance of Big Pharma's researchers and chemists can be outsmarted by a single-celled organism that doesn't even have half a brain.

Deadly Animal Virus May Soon Come to U.S. Mainland

NaturalNews.com

by Barbara L. Minton

The nation’s food supply may soon be under significant threat as the result of a Bush administration decision to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland, placing it near herds of livestock.

According to an April 11th Associated Press article by Larry Margasak, concerns about a catastrophic outbreak of hoof and mouth disease have prompted some in Congress to demand internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of this decision. An epidemic of this dreaded disease could devastate the livestock industry.

Lawmakers have already received one such report from the Homeland Security Department, which combines commercial satellite images and federal farm data to reveal the proximity to livestock herds of the five locations under consideration for the new lab. The numbers of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the locations under consideration range from 132,900 at the site near Atlanta, Georgia, to 542,507 at the site near Manhattan, Kansas.

Research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans will be included at this new laboratory, the National Bio-and-Agro-Defense Facility. The rationale for the new laboratory is that the current facility, in Plum Island, does not have the security in place for this higher-level usage. The Department of Agriculture ran the Plum Island lab until 2003, when it was turned over to the Homeland Security Department because preventing an outbreak has become part of the nation’s biological defense program. Other locations being considered are Butner, N.C.; San Antonio, Tx; and Flora, Miss.

Although rarely a threat to humans, hoof-and-mouth virus is deadly to animals. It can be transported on workers breath, clothes, or vehicles when they leave the lab. It is so contagious that it has been confined to Plum, Island, New York for over 50 years where it is far from commercial livestock. The current location, 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound, is accessible only by ferry or helicopter.

Plum Island researchers work on detection of disease, epidemic control strategies, vaccines and drugs, tests of imported animals, and training of professionals. Researchers who work with the live virus are not permitted to own susceptible animals at their homes, and they are required to wait at least a week before attending outside events where such animals might be encountered, such as circuses or rodeos.

According to the article, a simulated outbreak of the disease was part of a 2002 government exercise called Crimson Sky. “It ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation’s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets.” The government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch 25 miles long in Kansas to bury the carcasses.

Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan. portrayed the president in the simulation, and recalls what a mess it was. Nevertheless, he now supports moving the government’s new lab to his state, because “It will mean jobs” and spur research and development, he says.

An epidemic of the disease in 2001 produced devastation to Britain’s livestock industry, and resulted in the government slaughter of 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. A less serious outbreak last year was thought to have been caused by viral contamination from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other recent outbreaks occurred in Taiwan and China.

Diseased animals weaken and lose weight. Milk cows stop producing and remain highly infectious, even if they survive the virus. If evidence in a single cow suggests an outbreak in the U.S., emergency plans call for the government to immediately shut down all exports and movement of livestock. Herds would be quarantined, and controlled slaughter would begin to help halt the spread of the disease.

Although the British outbreak indicated that the virus can escape from a modern day facility and wreak economic havoc, the Bush administration supports belief that modern laboratory safety rules are adequate to prevent an outbreak. The Homeland Security Department is also convinced that it can operate a lab on the mainland safely, citing improved containment procedures at high-security labs.

The former director of the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Dr. Roger Breeze, says that research ought to be kept away from cattle populations and, ideally, placed where the public has already accepted this type of research. If the government is unwilling to expand and update the Plum Island site, he suggests the location of the facility at the Atlanta campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., the location of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases. Another possibility he suggests is on Long Island, where there is no commercial livestock industry, and where most of the current Plum Island employees could be retained.

When asked about the administration’s choice of sites near livestock, Breeze says, “It seems a little odd. It goes against the... safety program of the last 50 years.”

The last outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease on the U.S. mainland was in 1929. “The horrific prospect of exterminating potentially millions of animals is not something this country’s ready for,” says Dr. Floyd Horn, former head of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Service.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also express worry about a move to the mainland. Rep. John Dingle, D-Mich, chairman of the committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich, have threatened to subpoena records they claim Homeland Security is withholding from Congressional inspection. Of particular interest are the reports about Crimson Sky, an internal review of a 1978 release of hoof-and-mouth disease on Plum Island, and reports about releases of the virus on the island during the past century.

If these reports are not turned over as requested, the committee leaders warned in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary, Chertoff, they will vote to issue a congressional subpoena.

Cattle farmers and residents are divided over the proposal. Community activist, Grady Thrasher is worried about an outbreak from a research lab, and has started a petition drive against moving the lab to Georgia, citing the great risks involved. “There’s no way you can balance that equation by putting this in the middle of a community where it will do the most harm,” Thrasher said. “The community is now aroused, so I think we have a majority against this.”

3.5 Million Tons of Plastic Debris Now Floating in the Pacific

NaturalNews.com

by David Gutierrez

A mass of plastic debris twice the size of Texas is still growing in the Pacific Ocean, fueled primarily by plastic trash generated on the land. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of 3.5 million tons of trash, 80 percent of it plastic, floating in a rarely-traveled portion of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and San Francisco.

"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," said Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, Calif. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."

According to Chris Parry, public education program manager for the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco, the garbage patch has been growing tenfold every decade since the 1950s. This corresponds with an equivalent increase in worldwide ocean debris.

The debris is highly dangerous to ocean life. Birds and marine animals may injure themselves by swallowing hard, indigestible shards of plastic. Animals like sea turtles, which mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, may also eat plastic that is less immediately harmful but just as fatal in the long term."

These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

Plastic, which is synthesized from petroleum, can persist for decades before beginning to degrade, making it nearly impossible to get rid of once it is produced.

Parry and Chabot agree that the best way to keep the Great Pacific Garbage Patch from growing is to reduce production of plastic waste and use fewer plastic products at the consumer level as well."

What we can do is ban plastic fast food packaging," Chabot said, "or require the substitution for biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws."

GlaxoSmithKline Continues Vaccine Trial Even After 12 Babies Die

NaturalNews.com

by Joanne Waldron

According to an article at TradingMarkets.com, at least a dozen babies have died in a pneumonia vaccine trial conducted by GlaxoSmithKline in Argentina. The Argentina Federation of Health Professionals (Fesprosa) asserts that children of poor families are being used for the trials, and parents are bullied into signing consent forms. The trials are still continuing, even though at least 12 infants have already died.

Fesprosa maintains that there is no state control and that there are no ethical requirements. This doesn't come as any surprise to those who know how these kinds of human trials usually occur. Generally speaking, vaccine trials are conducted in Third World countries on poor people who often feel trapped into participating in human health experiments in order to receive medical care or other necessities.

One doesn't find these kinds of experiments going on in places like the United States or Europe, where names and faces of victims would get out into the media and cause a big stir. Instead, the infants of impoverished people, who often can't even read or write, are used in the trials. Apparently, the lead investigator of the trial didn't think it was any big concern that over 12 babies have already died since deaths from respiratory illnesses caused by the pneumococcal bacteria kill even more people. Of course, this is no comfort to the poor mothers whose babies are sacrificed for the monetary gains of a pharmaceutical giant.

The great aunt of one of the victims alleges that once children begin to participate in these trials, there is no way out. Mothers who try to remove their children from the trials are browbeaten into submission, being told that their children will never receive any other vaccines if removed before a trial is completed. Imagine being a poor, uneducated mother and having to make such a choice. (Remember, too, that some can't even read the consent forms they are signing!)

Anyone who hasn't seen The Constant Gardener, a film starring Ralph Fiennes, truly needs to do so. While the story is fictional, the viewer is able to get a better feel for how drug and vaccine trials are conducted. Some particularly touching words are spoken in the movie by the character "Ham," who is discussing the deaths that happen in trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies when he states: "And from those deaths we derive the benefits of civilization, benefits we can afford so easily... because those lives were bought so cheaply." Unfortunately, all consumers of drugs and vaccines share some of the responsibility for the deaths and injuries of these drug trial victims. While it isn't always easy to do the right thing, sometimes one just has to make the moral choice to stand up for these innocent children and say "no" to Big Pharma.

World's Greatest Medical Failures

By: Jon Barron

Last issue, I discussed the "10 greatest advancements in medical history." In this issue, I want to cover some of medicine's greatest failings and to discuss some of the philosophical holes in the modern medical paradigm that lead to those failings. And of course, along the way, highlight some of those failings.

But first, let's get some perspective.

Sickness, disease, and injury abound. People need medical care. In America, we have grown up trusting our family doctor. There is peace of mind in knowing that someone cares, that someone knows your child by name and is moved by compassion when you, or someone you love, is hurting. In recent years we have turned to the more anonymous (but more complete) coverage, of prepaid medical plans. In Europe and Canada, it's the "health system" physicians who offer you cradle to grave protection in the name of the state. Understand, when you need a doctor, only a doctor will do. If you are severely injured in an automobile accident, you want a skilled surgeon -- not an herbalist.

Modern medical science has made incredible advances and contributions which have alleviated pain and suffering. Surgical technique (the cutting apart and repairing of the human body) has made remarkable progress. Identification of germs that cause disease and improved sanitation, which aids in preventing that disease, have also seen vast achievements. Burn treatment, trauma, and emergency room care are nothing less than miraculous. When it comes to these areas of medical care, the value they bring to us is impossible to measure.

But…there is another side to this story. There is great failure in health care today -- and, as a result of that failure, great pain and unnecessary suffering. And it is important that, as you discover how badly the modern medical paradigm is failing, you take great care not to assign blame wrongly. Yes, there are incompetent doctors whose practices we all abhor, and we wish they could never practice medicine again, but this newsletter is not about them. Neither is it directed at the thousands of faithful health care workers who go about their daily jobs. Specifically, my purpose in this newsletter is to confront the very foundational philosophy and system of the modern medical paradigm -- a philosophy that costs trillions and a system that promises hope, but delivers misery. No one, including many inside the medical community, can help but acknowledge these great failings. Sadly, for all our education and massive expenditures, modern medicine has failed miserably. You may wonder why.

Modern medicine likes to trace its roots to Hippocrates, the patron saint of today's doctors. In truth, its roots rest more comfortably in the Newtonian views of the 17th century when philosophers and scientists defined the universe as a great machine. Physicians of that era were not immune to this influence and likewise began to define the human body as a machine. According to this "new" paradigm, the body could be analyzed, catalogued, adjusted, and repaired as required -- just like any other machine.

This viewpoint became firmly established during the 19th century when the "body as machine" concept was taken to its ultimate, absurd extreme. The human body was no longer viewed as a holistic entity, but rather as a grouping of separate parts and pieces. Disease was no longer viewed as a body state, but as a set of symptoms. Ultimately, and so it is today, the province of medicine has become the observation, classification, and management of symptoms. According to this paradigm, disease or illness or injury manifests itself as symptoms entirely separate from the body as a whole (a decidedly non-holistic paradigm). The body is irrelevant. If the symptom can be eliminated (e.g., cholesterol numbers lowered through daily use of statin drugs), you are, by definition, now healthy.

In fact, there are some who would argue that today's medicine has even gone beyond treating the body as a machine -- that today's doctors have taken things to a whole new level of absurdity. They treat the body as a mere set of "numbers." When you go to your doctor now, he or she orders up a series of very expensive tests (blood work, PSA, EEG, etc.), each of which produces a set of numbers. Then, based on where your numbers fall relative to a chart of "normal" numbers, your doctor prescribes a series of drugs to move your numbers up or down so that they fall within the "norm." In this model, even symptoms don't matter -- only the numbers.

As it turns out, the body as machine paradigm works very well in surgical repair. If you break an arm, the doctor works with that part of the machine and repairs your arm. If you are wounded by a bullet, the doctor removes the bullet and repairs all of the separate parts of your body damaged by the bullet -- again, problem solved!

Unfortunately, the paradigm's failures become most evident when we look at the major diseases of our time -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc.

The failure of the medical paradigm

For now, let's just look at the big three diseases.

The failure of cancer treatments

The standard treatments for cancer are surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Do any of these treatments do one single thing to address the actual causes of cancer? And the answer, of course, is no, they do not. All they do is "attempt" to remove the manifestation of the cancer that results from these causes. To believe they address the underlying causes of your cancer, you would have to believe that you got cancer in the first place because your body was suffering from a deficiency of radiation or chemotherapy. No one believes that, not even your doctor. Is it any wonder then that these treatments have had such a poor track record? And on top of everything else, we now know that radiation and chemotherapy are known carcinogens. They significantly compound the problem!

The failure of diabetes treatments

Standard medical treatment offers several flawed approaches:

- Drugs like metformin seek to inhibit the absorption of high glycemic carbohydrates in the intestinal tract and enhance insulin sensitivity in the body, thereby reducing the need for extra insulin.

a) The major problem with metformin is its effect on the gastrointestinal system, ranging from a mild loss of appetite to nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, cramps, flatulence and diarrhea. Many patients find these symptoms impossible to cope with and discontinue the tablets within days.

b) Lactic acidosis is a rare but dangerous side effect of metformin. This is a serious condition where the cells of the body do not get enough oxygen to survive. It is caused by a build up of lactic acid in the blood. Most of the cases described have been in people whose kidneys were not working well -- an inevitable problem with diabetes.

- Drugs like glyburide work by stimulating the pancreas to release more insulin.

a) Glyburide is so effective that you need to carry glucose pills with you in case you produce so much insulin that your blood sugar drops too low and you fall into a diabetic coma. Although this rarely happens, it is indicative of the larger problems with glyburide:

1) It raises insulin levels so high that your body faces all of the problems of high insulin levels discussed above.

2) It doesn't repair beta cells; it just forces them to work harder -- thus speeding up the day when they break down and become dysfunctional.

- Extra insulin in the form of pills or injections cover you when the beta cells in your pancreas have burned out and can no longer produce sufficient insulin by themselves or even when stimulated by drugs such as glyburide -- until, that is, your body's insulin resistance is so high that no amount of insulin is adequate for the task at hand. At that point, your body goes into rapid decay.

And when all is said and done, it should be noted that a huge study published earlier this year found that aggressively using these drugs to lower blood sugar levels actually resulted in an increased risk of death. The more they were used, the greater the risk.

The failure of heart disease treatments

Heart disease is the number one killer in the developed world; in most cases, it begins with atherosclerosis, which is the accumulation of plaque that hardens and narrows arteries. The progression is simple. You have clogged arteries. This eventually causes your blood pressure to rise so your doctor prescribes blood pressure medication to eliminate the symptom of high blood pressure -- not the problem, clogged and hardened arteries. To reduce blood pressure, doctors have essentially four classes of medication in their arsenal.

1. Diuretics, which reduce pressure by making you pee out water from your body. Reduce the volume of fluid in your blood, and you reduce the pressure. Unfortunately, side effects can include dizziness, weakness, an increased risk of strokes, and impotence. (Not to worry, there are more medications to alleviate the side effects.)

2. Calcium channel blockers, which work to relax and widen the arteries -- thus reducing blood pressure. Then again, a major side effect of channel blockers is a 60% increased risk of heart attack. (1, 2)

3. Beta blockers, which work by weakening the heart so it won't pump as strongly, thereby reducing blood pressure. One of the major problems with beta blockers, though, is the increased risk of congestive heart failure. And more recently, its use has been associated with an increased risk of diabetes. Now catch this. Despite the increased risk of congestive heart failure, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine August 20, 1998, recommended putting "every single" heart attack survivor on beta blockers.

4. ACE inhibitors (the new drugs of choice), which like the calcium channel blockers, also work to relax and widen the arteries. Unfortunately, ACE inhibitors can produce severe allergic reactions, can be deadly to fetuses and children who are breastfeeding, and can cause severe kidney damage.

But remember, these drugs only treat the symptom, not the cause -- clogged arteries. So eventually, as your arteries continue to clog to the point where even the medication no longer helps, you start getting the inevitable chest pains and shortness of breath. At that point, your doctor is then forced to chase the next set of symptoms and perform a coronary bypass or angioplasty to relieve the symptoms.

And like the drugs before it, surgery merely addresses the symptoms, not the problem. Think about this for a moment: If all your doctor did was bypass or clear the arteries supplying blood to your heart, doesn't that mean that all of the other arteries in your body are still clogged -- including the arteries that supply blood to your brain? The answer, of course, is yes. And, in fact, your odds of having a stroke after heart surgery are dramatically increased.

Not to worry. Your doctor has another drug to deal with this problem: Coumadin® (medicinal rat poison), which inhibits clotting and thins your blood so that it flows more easily through the narrowed arteries. But Coumadin has its own set of problems, and, of course, you are still on all of the previous blood-pressure drugs and symptom relieving drugs that your doctor previously prescribed.

The bottom line is that the average number of prescriptions per senior citizen has grown from 19.6 in 1992 to 28.5 in 2000, an increase of 45 percent. The average number of prescriptions per person 65 and older is projected to grow to 38.5 by 2010, an increase of 35 percent over 2000. From 1992 to 2010, then, the average number of prescriptions per senior citizen will grow by 96 percent. Stunningly, only the first 1 or 2 drugs actually deal with the symptoms presented by the original medical problem. The other 17-36 drugs are all required to deal with the negative side effects of the original 2, plus the interactions of all the other drugs being taken. And the really sad fact is that in over 95% of all cases, the original problem could have been resolved by merely changing diet and lifestyle -- with no side effects.

Somehow, along the way, we have created a major industry centered around disease and manipulating the symptoms of those diseases, and everyone wants a piece of the action -- from insurance companies to doctors, administrators to state legislatures, lobbyists to hospitals, drug companies to researchers, medical device companies to universities, and even all the non-profits that collect millions and millions of dollars to support this massive system of dysfunction. Make no mistake, this is not a wellness industry, but as Paul Pilzer states in The Wellness Revolution, it is a "Disease Industry" -- designed not to eliminate disease, but to perpetuate the management of symptoms. And the really sad fact is that in over 95% of all cases, the original problem could have been resolved naturally -- with no side effects.

Do you understand the implications of that statement?

Disease can be averted, treated, and in many, many cases even reversed -- naturally, with no side effects…and at little cost!

The 10 things doctors must do to truly earn the respect they crave

Look, modern medicine and the doctors who practice it have much to be proud of. As we discussed earlier (and last issue), there are many areas in which they have made great progress -- and areas in genetic and stem cell therapy and prosthetics that are likely to be transforming over the next 10-20 years.

But that said, there is much that modern medicine has to apologize for. And if doctors ever truly want to be the all around healers they claim to be, they will have to change some fundamental paradigms.

In the last newsletter, I listed the 10 greatest advances in medical history, according to doctors surveyed in the British Medical Journal. Let me wrap up this two part series by giving you my list of the 10 things doctors must do if they truly want to earn the respect they crave. Medical doctors must:

1. Start thinking of the human body as an integrated whole, not a machine with separate parts that can be treated independently.

2. Start treating underlying causes, rather than merely managing symptoms.

3. Actually learn the real role that diet and lifestyle play in optimizing health. A total of 6-8 hours of study in medical school does not make one an expert.

4. Accept the fact that the proper use of the right supplements can improve health.

5. Accept the fact that exposure to over 100,000 untested toxins released into the environment is going to have an impact on health -- and that it is indeed possible to detoxify many of those toxins even after they have entered the body.

6. Stop accepting perks (essentially bribes) from the pharmaceutical companies, which then influence subsequent treatment decisions.

7. Stop accepting simultaneous positions with drug companies and on FDA advisory boards. Quite simply, it is unethical to pass regulatory decisions on drugs in which you have a financial interest.

8. Evaluate alternative therapy treatments on a level playing field. Stop insisting that alternative health treatments must undergo rigorous peer reviewed study before they can be used, and yet allow 85% of all medical treatments to be used untested.

9. Stop being so arrogant as to think that if treatments don't come from within the medical fraternity, they have no value.

10. And stop being so arrogant as to think that alternative health treatments and supplements can be evaluated without the active participation of alternative healers. Going to medical school grants no expertise in alternative health -- none! (I once had a medical doctor announce to me with great pride that he had become an expert in alternative health the previous weekend under instructions from the head of his hospital. Considering that it's taken me over 40 years to develop a passing understanding of the field, with expertise in just one or two small areas, his achieving mastery of the entire field in just two days was truly impressive.)

When all is said and done, I have been fortunate to travel the world, to meet and spend time with dedicated men and women within the medical community whose work in the field of healing has distinguished them as miracle doctors. Not once or twice, but every day, over and over, they perform miracles.

But when it comes to the major diseases of our time, they can do better. And when you consider the alternative, we can only hope they do.

Judicial Watch Uncovers New FDA Records Detailing Ten New Deaths & 140 “Serious” Adverse Events Related to Gardasil

Contact:Press Office 202-646-5188
Washington, DC


Watchdog Publishes New Special Report Examining 8,864 Adverse Event Reports Detailing Safety Concerns

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released a report based on new documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. The adverse reactions include 10 deaths since September, 2007. (The total number of death reports is at least 18 and as many as 20.) The FDA also produced 140 “serious” reports (27 of which were categorized as “life threatening”), 10 spontaneous abortions and six cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome – all since January 2008. Adverse reports excerpts include:


1. Information has been received...concerning a 20 year old female with no medical history reported, who on 01-APR-2008 was vaccinated with a dose of Gardasil....The patient died four days after...patient sought unspecified medical attention. An autopsy was performed which ruled out suicide and anything suspicious. The cause of death is currently unknown. VAERS ID: 310262-1 (D)

2. Information has been received…concerning a 23-year-old female…who on 31-JAN-2008 was vaccinated with her 1st dose of Gardasil...the patient experienced anaphylactic shock 2 minutes after vaccination characterized by a brief loss of consciousness...respiratory arrest, eyes rolled upwards, blurred vision and greyish skin tone...Anaphylactic shock was considered to be immediately life-threatening. VAERS ID: 304739-1 (S)

3. Cold sweat, Fall, Foaming at mouth, Grand mal convulsion, Immediate post-injection reaction....Pt [patient, 14-year-old female] received vaccine, took 6 steps, fell to the ground unconscious and had a 60 sec grand mal seizure then regained consciousness. [Blood pressure] after seizure 60/40 pale clammy skin. [Patient] had bit her tongue and had foam around her mouth. VAERS ID: 305259-1 (S)

4. Information has been received from a physician concerning a female patient who on an unknown date was vaccinated with a dose of Gardasil. Subsequently, the patient experienced a coma and is now paralyzed. At the time of this report, the patient's outcome was unknown. VAERS ID: 303188-1

“Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to reevaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch had previously obtained 3,461 reports relating to Gardasil. On June 10, 2008, Judicial Watch received a compact disk from the FDA with a new total of 8,864 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) records. These documents and the new Judicial Watch report, entitled “Examining the FDA’s HPV Vaccine Records: Detailing the Approval Process, Side-Effects, Safety Concerns & Marketing Practices of a Large Scale Health Experiment,” are available at www.judicialwatch.org.

Serious Health Dangers May Be Lurking In Your Shampoo & Soap

by Greg Ciola

Source: www.healthtruthrevealed.com

The American public and the world have become the unwitting subjects of a massive toxicological experiment from personal care products. It’s ironic that in a day and age when so many have a heightened fear of terrorism and infectious diseases, few are aware of the harmful health risks coming from soaps, shampoos, shaving creams, deodorants, toothpaste, skin creams, cosmetics, hair sprays, laundry detergents, dishwashing products and household cleaners. Billions of people every day are being exposed to ingredients that are proven carcinogens, toxins, neurotoxins, hormone disrupters, skin irritants, allergens, and respiratory disrupters. Some of the ingredients being used have even proven to be deadly to laboratory animals yet the government has declared them safe for use with humans.

Might this be one reason why so many people suffer from such things as dry skin, itchy skin, persistent skin irritations and rashes, sinus problems, allergies, asthma, respiratory ailments, reproductive problems, neurological disorders, and other health related ailments that doctors and medicine just don’t seem to have answers for?

Perhaps it’s time you examined your personal care products a little further to see if they are having a deleterious effect on your overall health. We have reached the point where diet and exercise alone are not enough to keep your health in check. You must monitor and regulate every aspect of your life – from what you put on your body to what you put into your body, and even to what you use to clean your house.

Beware Of The Hidden Dangers of Shampoo

Unless the shampoo you use has been thoroughly investigated to be free of all caustic chemicals, phthalates, parabens, sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate, artificial fragrances and numerous other toxins, you are more than likely exposing yourself and loved ones to a risky brew of ingredients that could be extremely hazardous to your health. Did you know that a majority of the ingredients used in personal care products are actually derived from petroleum by-products, coal tar, and animal fats? I am sure that given the choice most of you wouldn’t choose ingredients derived from these sources to wash your hair or body.

Here’s something interesting to ponder. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health analyzed 2,983 chemicals used in personal care products. The final results were as follows.

• 884 of the chemicals were toxic
• 778 caused acute toxicity
• 376 caused skin and eye irritation
• 314 caused biological mutation
• 218 caused reproductive complications
• 148 caused cancerous tumors

Parents of newborns and little children beware! A new study published in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics suggests that baby shampoos, lotions and powders may expose infants to chemicals that have been linked with possible reproductive problems.

The study focused on chemicals called phthalates, which are becoming fairly common in the environment. They are used in lubricants and cosmetics, and increasingly they are showing up in plastic products, including children’s toys.

A story appearing on the website www.consumeraffairs.com highlighted the study:

“Researchers carefully measured the phthalates levels in the urine of 163 infants between the ages of two and 28 months. They compared those levels to a description of their recent activities, provided by their mothers.
The moms in the study were specifically asked about any lotions, shampoo, powders, wipes or diaper creams they had used, as well as the use of plastic toys, teething rings and pacifiers.
While all the infants in the study had some level of phthalates in their urine, those who had used shampoo, lotion and powder had higher levels of the chemical than those who did not. The researchers concluded that parents who want to reduce phthalates in their children should avoid products that contain these chemicals.”

It’s quite disturbing that manufacturers actually produce products that they know can harm people, especially children. To highlight the problem further with personal care products on the market, I decided to take one popular brand of shampoo (name withheld) and examine its contents so you have some deeper insight into what you may be exposing yourself to every day.

Here’s what the label said it contains: Ammonium Chloride, Glycerin, Glycol Distearate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Octoxynol, Fragrance, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Blue 1, Yellow 5, Red 40.

(Some of the information was obtained from two books: A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients and A Consumers Dictionary Of Food Additives by Ruth Winter.)

1) Ammonium Chloride: Industrially employed in freezing mixtures, batteries, dyes, safety explosives, and in medicine as a urinary acidifier and diuretic. If ingested, can cause nausea, vomiting, and acidosis in doses of 0.5 to 1 gram. Lethal as an intramuscular dose in rats and guinea pigs. As with any ammonia compound, concentrated solutions can be irritating to the skin.

2) Glycerin: Any by-product of soap manufacturing obtained by adding alkalis to fats and fixed oils. A solvent, humectant, and emollient in many cosmetics, it absorbs moisture from the air and therefore, helps keep moisture in creams and other products, even if the consumer leaves the cap off the container. In and of itself glycerin is not a bad ingredient. It’s actually very beneficial when derived from the right source and is found in many organic products. The main problem with a lot of the glycerin being used in mainstream products stems from the fact that unless a product label states that it was derived from a vegetable or coconut source, it was likely obtained from pig fat.

3) Glycol Distearate: A widely used surfactant made from glycerin and stearic acid. Glycol literally means “glycerin” plus “alcohol.” (Stearic acid is also an animal fat and isopropyl alcohol is derived from petroleum.) This ingredient can be caustic on your skin.

4) Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS): Prepared by sulfation of lauryl alcohol followed by neutralization with sodium carbonate. May cause drying of the skin because of its degreasing ability and is an irritant to the skin. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is an ingredient found in over 90% of commercial shampoos and conditioners. It has been shown to corrode the hair follicles and impede hair growth and has been blamed for many cases of premature hair loss. The Material Safety Data Sheet provided by the U.S. government says exposure to SLS can lead to a burning sensation, coughing, wheezing, laryngitis, shortness of breath, headache, nausea and vomiting. According to the American College of Toxicology, SLS stays in the body up to five days. Other studies show that it easily penetrates the skin and maintains residual levels in the heart, liver, the lungs, and the brain.

5) Octoxynols: Wax-like emulsifiers, dispersing agents, and detergents derived from phenol and used as a surfactant.

6) Phenol: Obtained from coal tar. Ingestion of even small amounts of phenol may cause nausea, vomiting, circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma, respiratory failure, and cardiac arrest.

7) Coal Tar: Thick liquid or semisolid tar obtained from bituminous coal, it contains many constituents including benzene, xylenes, naphthalene, pyridine, quinolineoline, phenol, and cresol. The main concern about coal tar derivatives is that they cause cancer in animals, and they are also frequent sources of allergic reactions — particularly skin rashes and hives.

8) Fragrance: Fragrance is found in most deodorants, shampoos, sunscreens, skin care, body care and baby products. Fragrance on a label can indicate the presence of up to 4,000 separate ingredients. Almost all of them are synthetic. Symptoms reported to the FDA have included headaches, dizziness, rashes, skin discoloration, violent coughing and vomiting, and allergic skin irritations. (Fragrance is a clever way for manufacturers to disguise lethal and harmful ingredients and is virtually unregulated by the EPA or the FDA.)

9) Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate: A preservative widely used in cosmetics. Has been shown to adversely affect livers in rats in feeding studies. It also affected their behavior. It was also mildly irritating in human testing. (Carbamates are used in pesticides. Carbamic acid, which is colorless and odorless, causes depression of bone marrow, degeneration of the brain, nausea and vomiting. It is moderately toxic by many routes.)

10) Blue 1: A bright blue, coal tar derivative, triphenylmethane, used for hair colorings, face powders, and other cosmetics (see coal tar). May cause allergic reactions. On the FDA permanent list of color additives. Rated 1A – that is, completely acceptable for nonfood use – by the World Health Organization. However, it produces malignant tumors at the site of injection and by ingestion in the rat.

11) Yellow 5: A lemon-yellow coal tar derivative. (See coal tar)

12) Red 40: Many American scientists feel that the safety of Red No. 40 is far from established, particularly because the manufacturer conducted all of the tests. Therefore, the dye should not have received a permanent safety rating. The National Cancer Institute reported that p-credine, a chemical used in preparation of Red No. 40, was carcinogenic in animals. In rats, a high oral dose of the coloring caused adverse reproductive effects. It has been shown to cause skin sensitivity and irritation. Absorption of certain colors by the body can also cause depletion of oxygen.

This brief list of ingredients doesn’t even scratch the surface. There are thousands of others on the market and what I’ve just pointed out is pretty much the norm with most of them.

Do you think there may be a correlation between the use of shampoo and hair conditioners and those who suffer from dandruff, dry itchy scalp, balding, and other head, eye, and skin irritations? Did you know that side effects from shampoo are among the most frequent complaints made to the FDA? It should be evident after reviewing just a fraction of the ingredients being used that you should look for safer alternatives. Washing your hair in rendered animal fats, petroleum by-products, harmful dyes and perfumes is certainly not the answer to good hygiene.

Beware Of The Hidden Dangers of Soap

You probably didn’t know that most commercial soap and even some so-called “natural” soap on the market use animal fat in the form of Tallow, Sodium Tallowate, Magnesium Stearate, Stearic Acid, and Glycerin as the base for their product. Just check the labels of all the major brands and chances are you’ll find at least one of these ingredients listed. In the case of glycerin, unless they specifically state that it is derived 100% from coconuts or a vegetable source, it more than likely has come from pig fat. Let me ask you a very important question – how can you really expect to get clean by scrubbing your skin, face, and hair with animal fats? Could you imagine using the fat obtained from a person who had liposuction done? It’s disgusting! Why isn’t the fat from animals viewed the same way?

Most popular soaps also contain petroleum by-products, coal tar derivatives, hard surfactants, hard alkyl benzene sulfanates, preservatives, fragrances, dyes, perfumes, deodorizers and other toxic and caustic ingredients. Auto mechanics are warned that long-term exposure to petroleum products can cause skin cancer and other skin maladies yet we are led to believe by the cosmetics industry that these products clean and moisturize your skin. As with shampoo, your daily soap cleansing may actually be doing you more harm than good.

Sure, on the outside you may appear clean, but inside, your body may be a toxic waste dump full of carcinogens and health-threatening chemicals. In fact, chemical sensitivities are increasing dramatically every year and new research is linking many common cosmetic ingredients to the problem. The reason why these inferior ingredients are often used instead of safer alternatives is two-fold. They are dirt cheap, and it is a means for the meat-packing industry and the oil refining industry to make money on their by-products.

You see, millions of animals are slaughtered every year in the U.S. To just discard the leftovers makes no sense when a rendering plant can manufacture all sorts of by-products from the remains and make a huge profit. The majority of what is processed at a rendering plant comes from slaughterhouses, but also includes restaurant grease, expired meat from grocery stores, the carcasses of euthanized and dead animals from animal shelters, zoos, veterinarians, and road kill scraped off the highway. This material can include the fatty tissue, bones, and offal, as well as entire carcasses of animals condemned at slaughterhouses, and those that have died on farms (deadstock), in transit, etc. The most common animal sources are beef, pork, sheep, and poultry. During the rendering process the fat is separated and processed, put into containers, and sold to the cosmetic industry as a base for their product.

A similar situation takes place with oil refineries. There are numerous by-products produced from crude oil and sold off to cosmetic manufacturers for cleansing and disinfectant agents. While there are many safe alternative substances available that work far better, the large corporations refuse to change because there isn’t enough consumer demand yet and they aren’t willing to sacrifice profits to switch.

One of the worst practices going on in the industry deals with manufacturers using deceptive marketing tactics to actually fool consumers into thinking that their products are natural or that they will moisturize your skin. Beware of bold words on the front of packaging claiming that products are made with “natural” ingredients or some exotic ingredient that will moisturize your skin. This is usually just label hype! What manufacturers do is sprinkle a tiny dose of vitamins into a product or a small amount of Aloe Vera or other natural ingredient and then claim on their label that it is fortified with natural ingredients. The consumer then sees that and thinks they are getting a terrific product and in actuality, they have been scammed. That, I believe, is one of the worst dirty tricks of the trade. This is all done to simply confuse and deceive consumers.

The best way to make a difference is to make a commitment to stop purchasing any products that could contain potentially toxic ingredients and animal fats. It’s time you became an informed consumer. Your health is worth it and so is your family’s. It’s time we turned off the spigot on this money machine that makes billions of dollars every year for international corporations that care more about the bottom line than putting out a high quality product that truly benefits consumers. It’s time to stop polluting your body with chemical toxins that can endanger your health. It’s also time to stop bathing in dead animal fats.

Don’t Be Deceived By Antibacterial Soap!

In addition to everything I’ve just reported there are also some very serious health risks posed by the use of antibacterial soaps. Researchers have proven that antibacterial soaps are no more effective against germs than common soap. Frequent hand washing is the real answer. Ironically, the massive use of antibacterial soap is leading to stronger drug-resistant germs and mutated bacterial strains. According to Myron Genel, a chairman of the AMA’s Council on Scientific Affairs: “There’s no evidence that they do any good and there’s reason to suspect that they could contribute to a problem.”

The fact is antibacterial soap kills beneficial bacteria on the skin and it has the potential to also get into the body and cause harm. Why is that a concern, you ask? Because not all bacteria is bad! Thanks in part to lies woven by big pharma and the medical community, many tend to think that all bacteria is bad and that we need to go to war against it by killing it off with antibiotics, chemicals, and antibacterial soap. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you were to examine your skin under a microscope you would find a variety of bacterial strains. Many of them work in synergy with your body to actually protect you from the environment and from the damaging effects of the sun. Researchers who have looked into the safety of antibacterial soap contend that the increased usage of it poses the risk of creating germs that are resistant to antibacterials and antibiotics.

When a doctor prescribes antibiotics, it is generally for a very short period of time and for a specific infection that won’t go away on its own. Many doctors and scientists today are becoming increasingly concerned about the consequences of long-term use and abuse of antibiotics. It’s strange how manufacturer’s of cosmetic products and all the people using them don’t make the same association with antibacterial soaps that are now being used by billions around the world every day as though they are somehow being protected using them. It’s a huge lie!

In a memo to FDA advisory committee members the agency said, “A search of the medical literature did not reveal any studies that were able to demonstrate a link between the use of a specific consumer antiseptic and a reduction in infection rate...”

In an article that appeared in USA Today on 10/25/05, they quoted Tufts microbiologist Stuart Levy who was invited by the FDA to speak about anti-microbial resistance. Levy said, “There is no place for antibacterial chemical additives in the healthy household.”

The main antibacterial additive being used is triclosan in liquid soaps and triclocarban in hard soaps. Triclosan is a strong inhibitor of an enzyme present in many microorganisms. This enzyme is also “potentially important” as a target for new antibiotics, raising concerns that the use of triclosan may make these drugs ineffective. Conducting follow-up testing that closely mirrored typical dishwashing habits and conditions, researchers found that triclosan reacted with free chlorine to generate more than 50 parts per billion (ppb) of chloroform in the dishwater.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota reported as far back as 2003 that: “Sunlight can convert triclosan, a common disinfectant used in anti-bacterial soaps, into a form of dioxin, and this process may produce some of the dioxin found in the environment, according to research at the University of Minnesota. The researchers said that although the dioxin was a relatively benign form, treating wastewater with chlorine could possibly lead to the production of a much more toxic species of dioxin. The study is in press in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry.”

Triclocarban is a close cousin of tricolsan and is known to be just as toxic and dangerous. In the book “A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients” it says that, “In May 1983, it was revealed that tests for this soap ingredient (Triclocarban) were falsified and that rat deaths were not reported. The reasons for the deaths were not confirmed.”

Since your skin is your body’s largest organ, the antibiotic agent (s) can absorb into your body and adversely affect your immune system, lymphatic system, endocrine system, reproductive system, and neurological system. Is it worth the risks? Parents need to be especially concerned about using antibacterial soap with young children since they tend to always put their hands in their mouth. If a child’s hands are regularly washed with antibacterial soap, their salivary glands can easily pick up these antibiotic chemicals and deliver them straight into the bloodstream while also killing off beneficial flora in the gut that functions as a major component of the immune system.

By now you may be feeling a bit frustrated and perhaps even angry. My goal has not been to put fear into you. I want to simply identify the problems and then point you in the direction of some safer alternatives. If I have convinced you that there are definite risks with a majority of the personal care products on the market, then I urge you to go through your home or office with a fine tooth comb and identify the products you have that contain questionable ingredients. Make sure you read all product labels thoroughly. If you can afford it, I would throw everything out. If money is a concern, use what you have and make a commitment to get the right products when it’s time to replace them.

FDA Leaps from Tomatoes to Peppers in Desperate, Fumbling Fiasco of Failed Food Safety over Salmonella

NaturalNews

by Mike Adams

Watching the FDA trip over its own clumsy self while groping for answers on Salmonella is a sad affair. Following the FDA-encouraged destruction of tens of millions of dollars of perfectly good tomatoes, this confused, bewildered agency admits that tomatoes may not have been the problem after all, and it has now set its sights on destroying the peppers industry. Is there no vegetable safe from the destruction of the FDA?

Tomatoes don't harbor salmonella, by the way. Neither do peppers, onions, cilantro or spinach. Salmonella only festers in factory-farmed animals, folks, and that means the real source of contamination is no doubt some animal factory upstream from the vegetable processing centers. So why isn't the FDA going after the animal factories that likely caused this whole fiasco? Because making Americans scared of their vegetables is a great way to advance the FDA's food irradiation agenda which would destroy virtually all the medicinal phytonutrients in plants.

As intelligent, informed consumers are now discovering to their own dismay, the FDA appears to be purposely dragging its feet on this food safety crisis, milking the fear for political gain just like President Bush after 9/11. Fear is a powerful tactic for pushing an agenda that the People would otherwise refuse to accept, and since most Americans are strongly opposed to food irradiation, the FDA is more than happy to drag out this salmonella issue as a way to make American consumers increasingly afraid of fresh vegetables.

This accomplishes three things the FDA supports:

1) It advances the FDA's pro-irradiation agenda where ALL fresh produce might someday be irradiated without your knowledge.

2) It makes consumers buy more processed, dead foods, which produces profits for the very same junk food companies that have strong influence at the FDA.

3) If food irradiation is put in place, it will destroy the medicinal properties of fresh produce, thereby blocking the prevention of diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, etc. This, in turn, has the effect of creating a windfall of sick people that will fill the coffers of drug companies (who are, of course, the FDA's clients).

But would the FDA play politics with the safety of American lives? Sure it would...

Wait a sec. Am I saying the FDA would purposely put American lives at risk in order to play politics with food safety?

Well, gee, if you haven't noticed, the FDA has been putting American lives at risk for well over a decade, pushing dangerous pharmaceuticals that were recalled by other nations, colluding with drug companies to bury negative information about the drugs, outlawing safe, natural alternatives to dangerous pharmaceuticals and even going so far as to threaten its own top scientists who attempt to speak out against dangerous drugs.

Want to know the truth about the FDA? Read the shocking facts, if you dare, at www.NaturalNews.com/the_FDA.html

This salmonella scare, you see, isn't about tomatoes, peppers or cilantro. It's about creating a state of fear in the minds of consumers -- a state that can be invoked to further the FDA's pro-irradiation agenda.

These scare stories, in other words, are a lot like false flag operations in the military, where conflicts are staged against one's own nation in order to blame the enemy and declare war. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

So as it turns out, the FDA isn't fumbling around so much after all. It only acts like it's clueless about these salmonella outbreaks in order to prolong the problem, generate more fearful press coverage, and then appear as the hero when it calls for widespread food irradiation.

Don't be afraid of fresh food, folks. Be outraged at the FDA's use of fear as a manipulation tactic to invoke a backlash against fresh food.

Vegetables are not the problem, and food irradiation would make them LESS safe for consumers, not more.

The Dangers Of Food Irradiation

Crusador

Dr. Gayle Eversole, PhD, ND

Source: http://www.rense.com

Originally reported on Leaflady.org in 1998.
More on the Problems with Food Irradiation

Food irradiation exposes food to the equivalent of 30 million chest X-rays.
Irradiation creates new chemicals in foods called radiolytic products. Some of these products are known cancer-causing substances (like benzene in irradiated beef). Others are unique to the irradiation process and no one knows what effects these have on human health.
Irradiation destroys essential vitamins and nutrients that are naturally present in food. No studies have been done to show that a long-term diet of irradiated foods is safe. Safer, well-tested alternatives to irradiation exist.

Irradiation plants pose environmental threats to workers and surrounding communities. The transportation of nuclear materials to irradiation facilities also poses severe public health risks.

What's Wrong with Food Irradiation?

Irradiation damages the quality of food.

Foods that have been exposed to ionizing radiation have second-rate nutrition and "counterfeit freshness." Irradiated fats tend to become rancid. Even at low doses, some irradiated foods lose 20% of vitamins such as C, E, K, and B complex. Because irradiation breaks down the food's cell walls, accelerated vitamin losses occur during storage--up to 80%. Ironically, irradiation both creates harmful free radicals and destroys the antioxidant vitamins necessary to fight them! When electron beams are used, trace amounts of radioactivity may be created. In Europe, food irradiation has been used to camouflage spoiled seafood. Consumers should ask, "Why is the food suddenly so dirty that it has to be irradiated?"

Irradiation produces toxic byproducts in the food.

Ionizing radiation knocks electrons out of atoms and creates free radicals. These free radicals react with food components, creating new radiolytic products, some of which are toxic (benzene, formaldehyde, lipid peroxides) and some of which may be unique to irradiated foods. No one knows the long term impact of eating unknown quantities of these damaged foods. Studies on animals fed irradiated foods have shown increased tumors, reproductive failures and kidney damage. Chromosomal abnormalities occurred in children from India who were fed freshly irradiated wheat.

Irradiation using radioactive materials is an environmental hazard.

In Georgia, radioactive water escaped from an irradiation facility; the taxpayers were stuck with $47 million in cleanup costs. In New Jersey, radioactive water was poured into drains that emptied into the public sewer system. Few communities want the increased risks of hosting irradiation facilities and the periodic transport of radioactive materials to and from irradiators. Numerous worker exposures have occurred worldwide.

Irradiation is a quick fix with long-term consequences.

Irradiation doesn't kill all bacteria; those that survive are radiation-resistant. Eventually these bacteria will require higher doses of radiation. Irradiation doesn't kill the bacterium that causes botulism, or viruses. It can't be used on dairy products, a major source of food poisoning. If the labels are removed, irradiation will be used very widely because producers will 'follow the leader' and irradiate to prevent themselves from liability for food poisoning, no matter how remote the possibility. The costs, as always, will be passed on to the consumer.

Irradiation doesn't solve the problem, it just covers it up.

In a 1997 CBS nationwide poll, 77% of US consumers did not want irradiated food. This public resistance is why food trade associations have been plotting to eliminate all requirements for labeling irradiated food. Irradiation is not the only option for providing clean and sustainable food. Cleaning up filthy slaughter houses, slowing down processing lines, increasing the number of federal meat inspectors, and encouraging local and organic agriculture instead of factory farming are just a few proposals that can lead to long-term food safety solutions without the risks of irradiation.

Source material originally from BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association
#
Link to original story here.

Century-Old Church Cove-Up of Health Scientific Works by P.J.A. Béchamp

Crusador

Christopher C. Barr

Originally published on April 16, 2008

The Pope arrived in America on the 100th anniversary of the death of Pierre Jacques Antoine Béchamp. This brought much to my memory.
While news reports prominently covered protesters addressing past sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) my thoughts were drawn to another past tragedy never yet addressed.

The upcoming movie release of ‘EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed’ addresses the subject of evilution and the suppression of those not accepting of that paradigm.

More than a decade ago Pope John Paul II made headlines with an announcement accepting of evilution. This was not news to me. Acceptance – and protection – of evilution by the Roman Catholic Church goes back almost to the very origin of that specious “science falsely so-called which some professing have erred from the faith” (II Timothy 6:20-21 KJV).

The RCC actively fought against the lone champion that fought against evilution as it was first coming to prominence in the person of Dr. Antoine Béchamp. The RCC fighting against Béchamp was fighting against one of its own – in more ways than one.

Antoine Béchamp was a man of deep and profound Christian faith. In 19th century France to be Christian was synonymous with being Roman Catholic.
Scientific works of Béchamp recorded specifically the affirmation of God to be solidified by his scientific findings.

In the midst of a flourishing career in the French university system Béchamp received a plea from his beloved Catholic church to head up the Medical program at a new Catholic university at Lille, France. He heeded this call out of devotion to his church in spite of colleagues pleading against this decision.

As the battle of Béchamp heated up against the errors of evilution and also against the errors and lies of the thieving scoundrel Louis Pasteur in the years immediately following, there was constant interference and strong opposition from RCC officials.

Béchamp was astounded by his own beloved church fighting against truth. There were even discussions about placing writings of Béchamp on The Index. This was the list of books banned by the RCC that had served as a cornerstone of The Inquisition.

Finally, after more than a decade the interference from RCC officials became too much for Béchamp and he resigned from the Catholic university at Lille where he had founded their medical program that continues to this day.

A bereft Béchamp now without academic backing continued his researches alone for more than two decades. The forces brought against him by his beloved Roman Catholic Church and academia at large have so far expunged Béchamp and the greater truth of his science research from the history of science to the great detriment of the masses of humanity.

Organized religion has continued to this day as perhaps the greatest of benefactors to the falsities and half-truths of modern mediSin while the fullness of truth from Béchamp is largely buried with him 100 years after the death of this greatest of scientists who ever lived.

It took 4 centuries for the RCC to apologize by way of Pope John Paul II for its treatment of Galileo. This week enters the 2nd century since the death of Béchamp. It remains to be seen whether the RCC is getting any better about confessions for past sins.

---

Christopher C. Barr writes Naturally Speaking from Arkansas: The Natural State … naturally! You may write him at P.O. Box 1147, Pocahontas, Arkansas 72455 or by e-mail at servantofYHVH@hotmail.com

GM Foods: The U.S. Fights Mandatory Labeling in An Untested Human Experiment

NaturalNews.com

by Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D.

The U.S. and several other nations recently attended a Codex meeting in Calgary, Canada to discuss food labeling. The Codex Alimentarius Commission implements the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Program, the purpose of which is to "protect" the health of consumers and to ensure fair practices in the food trade. The Codex Alimentarius (Latin, meaning Food Law or Code) is a collection of internationally adopted food standards presented in a uniform manner. One of the principle reasons for this forum was to discuss the necessity, or lack of necessity as the U.S. sees it, to set up mandatory labeling of GM (genetically modified) and GE (genetically engineered) foods for consumers. South Africa (SA) and many African countries are strong dissenting voices of the U.S. policy that all GM/GE foods are considered equal to non-GM/GE foods and are in fact deemed safe under a 1992 George H. W. Bush Executive Order.

Under this official policy, all GM/GE foods are not required to undergo any kind of safety testing before entering the market. Below you will find the exact policy of the FDA concerning GM food:"FDA relies primarily on two sections of the Act to ensure the safety of foods and food ingredients. Generally, whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and grains, are not subject to premarket approval. The primary legal tool that FDA has successfully used to ensure the safety of foods is the adulteration provisions of section 402(a)(1). The Act places a legal duty on developers to ensure that the foods they present to consumers are safe and comply with all legal requirements. FDA has authority to remove a food from the market if it poses a risk to public health. Foods derived from new plant varieties developed through genetic engineering will be regulated under this authority as well" [1].

Hence, nearly every modified food in the U.S. is completely untested for safety. This is very noteworthy for two reasons: (a) the U.S. leads the world in GM/GE foods (with up to 80% of its prepared and prepackaged foods being modified); and (b) every other nation besides the U.S. tests all GM/GE food before they are put into the food chain. Several African nations have dubbed GM/GE foods as "lethal" and believe the U.S. is fulfilling a population reduction strategy in Africa.

During the CODEX meeting, SA, who has been demanding that Codex provide them with distinct and mandatory GM/GE labels, presented a 10-page document expressing this view. In this document the following critical points were made:

1. Unmet Religious and Ethical Concerns for Christians and Jews

a. Corruption of Divine Protection

South Africa pointed out that in nearly every country there are various religious groups with differing beliefs when it comes to ingesting certain foods. South Africa stated that these "religious and ethical concerns must be noted and respected through global mandatory labeling of foods derived from genetic engineering and biotechnology" [2] (CCFL, 2008, p. 1). For example, kosher Jews and Halal Muslims would wish to know whether the corn they were eating had been modified with a gene from pigs. Similarly, Vegetarians would certainly wish to avoid vegetables which contained animal genes inserted into them and have an ethical right to know if this was the case.

B. Moral and Ethical Protection

SA contends that Codex and the WTO (World Trade Organization) assure protection of the moral, ethical and religious rights of Christian and Jewish believers. Therefore, mandatory labeling is essential to ensure these rights are preserved. If, for example, a Christian believed that God created heaven and earth as well as all living creatures (including food), then a serious ethical concern would arise if he or she wanted to avoid such modified foods but had no realistic way to do so.

2. Unintended Consumer Health Effects

a. Psychological and Emotional Health

SA rightfully argued that the introduction of GM/GE foods violate the principles and mandates of Codex which are in place to protect the health of the consumer. In Norway, a report on GM/GE foods stated that, "some customers may experience strong ethical, religious, emotional or other objections for purchasing certain foods. These perceived risks may influence their health. These aspects of health should also be considered when the needs for new standards are discussed"[2]. Hence, the labeling of GM/GE foods should be mandatory under such an assumption.

B. Unknown Effects of Consumption of GM/GE Biotech Foods

Due to the lack of testing on GM/GE foods, safety is a significant concern for many individuals. These individuals may wish to avoid such foods out of legitimate concern for their well-being. Antibiotic-resistant super diseases may be created if the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM foods would transfer into the consumer. Furthermore, some concerning results have been evinced from animals consuming GM/GE foods. GM DNA has been found in every organ (including fetuses) of animals eating these types of food. Additionally, numerous studies have shown many deleterious short and long-term effects from the consumption of GM/GE foods. For example, spermicide-containing corn, which was developed with funds from the USDA, results in complete sterility in males; this has been rampant in the food chain for some time. Without proper labeling of these types of foods, there is no way to protect the fertility of males. Several other recent studies are detailed below:

* In 2005 and 2006, researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that female rats who were fed glyphosate-tolerant GM soya produced an excessive number of stunted pups with over 50% of them dying within three weeks. The other half were all sterile. This experiment was repeated several times with the same result [3].

* Between 2005 and 2006 in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradech in India, thousands of sheep died while grazing on residues from Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, which is a type of bacteria which is toxic to some types of insects) cotton crops [4].

* In 2003, villagers in the Philippines' south suffered mysterious illnesses when a Monsanto Bt maize hybrid came into flower. At least five have died and many villagers tested positive for antibodies to the Bt protein while others still remain chronically ill [5].

* Between 2001 and 2002, 12 cows died in Hesse, Germany after consuming Syngenta GM maize (Bt176), while many others had to be slaughtered due to mysterious illnesses [6].

* From 2002 to 2005, researchers from four Italian universities published articles indicating that GM soya adversely affected pancreatic, hepatic (liver) and testicular cells in young mice [5].

* In 2005, Australian researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra reported that a harmless protein in beans (alpha-amylase inhibitor-1) caused inflammation in the lungs of mice and elicited increased dietary sensitivities to other proteins when transferred to peas [7].

* In 1998, researchers reported damage to every organ system of young rats who were fed GM potatoes containing snowdrop lectin [8]. In the same year, researchers in Egypt found analogous effects on the guts of mice fed Bt potato [9].

* In 2002, Aventis, later named Cropscience, submitted research to regulators in the U.K. reporting that chicken fed glufosinate-tolerant GM maize Chardon LL were twice as likely to die prematurely than chickens in the control group [10].

C. Nutrient Non-Equivalence

SA contends that plants genetically modified may not be nutritionally equivalent, bio-available and can possibly possess toxic anti-nutrients [11]. There is no nutritional information for such foods, which raises the possibility that the modified nutrient could be toxic. Different and modified forms of nutrients may be present, which may make these foods unsafe. South Africa concluded that the risks from GM/GE food fall outside the realm of non-modified food and therefore, require strict labels.

D. Post Market Surveillance Impossible Without Labeling

Safety concerns are never over once food reaches consumers. For example, The National Institutes of Science in the U.S. reported in June of 2004 that workers processing GM celery contracted severe rashes, especially when exposed to direct sunlight. Labeling would allow handlers and consumers to become cognizant of potential risks involved with eating and processing such types of foods. Based on the principles of Codex, SA stated that it would be inconsistent and dangerous to adopt anything other than mandatory labeling of GM/GE foods. Furthermore, the absence of adequate labeling of GM/GE foods essentially equates to human experimentation without informed consent. According to Nuremberg Code:

"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved... All inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person, which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment" [12]. According to SA, mandatory labeling will allow implied informed consent, which will allow consumers to opt in and out of the experiment if they choose to do so.

After SA had submitted their highly researched rationale behind the mandatory labeling of GM/GE foods, the U.S. and its allies (e.g., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia) jumped all over them and stated that extensive research clearly supports that GM/GE foods are safe, therefore, no labeling is necessary. This is obviously not the case (as presented by SA) and delineates the inter-meshed interests and historical marriage between U.S. and large food corporations (i.e., Monsanto, who produces up to 90% of GM/GE seeds and foods). Following the overwhelming condemnation of SA's paper from the U.S. and the extra procedural requirements the U.S. pushed for because of these comments, the SA government had it subsequently withdrawn.

As a result of this development and the constant battles with the corporations of the U.S. and their biased agendas, SA called another meeting and declared they would circumvent Codex and create their own labeling system with or without their agreement. Countries like Swaziland, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa and several other African countries with Japan, EU, Switzerland, Norway and many other countries stated their commitments to the mandatory labeling.

The meeting concluded with an agreement to eliminate all previous labeling documents and keep the door open for the future possibility of international labeling of GM/GE foods at a later date, which was strongly opposed by the U.S.

References:

1. Nutrition, U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. FDA's Policy for Foods Developed by Biotechnology. 2008 [cited May 27, 2008]; Available from: (http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/biopolcy.html) .

2. CCFL 2008. Comments from South Africa Agenda Item 5. [cited May 27, 2008]; Available from: ((http://www.prweb.com/prfiles/2008/05/01...) .

3. Ho, M.W., GM soya fed rats: stunted, dead or sterile. Science in Society, 33: (in press).

4. Ho, M.W., Mass deaths in sheep grazing on Bt cotton. Science in Society, 2006. 30: p. 12-13.

5. Ho, M.W., GM ban long overdue. Dozens ill & five deaths in the Philippines. Science in Society, 2006 29: p. 26-27.

6. Ho, M.W. and S. Burcher, Cows ate GM maize and died. Science in Society, 2004. 21: p. 4-6.

7. Ho, M.W., Transgenic peas that made mice ill. Science in Society, 2006. 29: p. 28-29.

8. Pusztai, A., S. Bardocz, and S.W.B. Ewen, Genetically modified foods: Potential human health effects, in Scottish Agricultural College, J.P.F. D'Mello, Editor. 2003, CAB International: Edinburgh.

9. Fares, N.H. and A.K. El-Sayed, Fine structural changes in the ileum of mice fed on dendotoxin-treated potatoes and transgenic potatoes. Natural Toxins, 1998. 6: p. 219-233.

10. Novotny, E., Avoid GM food, for good reasons. Science in Society, 2004. 21: p. 9-11.

11. Allinorm 08/31/34. Report of the Seventh Session of the Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Foods Derived from Biotechnology, Appendix III,. 24-28 September 2007: Chiba, Japan.

12. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, in Vol. 2. 1949, U. S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. p. 181-182.