Natural Family Awareness

http://www.foodnews.org/

Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects. Because the toxic effects of pesticides are worrisome, not well understood, or in some cases completely unstudied, shoppers are wise to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible.

Will Washing and Peeling Help?

Nearly all of the data used to create these lists already considers how people typically wash and prepare produce (for example, apples are washed before testing, bananas are peeled). While washing and rinsing fresh produce may reduce levels of some pesticides, it does not eliminate them. Peeling also reduces exposures, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the peel. The best option is to eat a varied diet, wash all produce, and choose organic when possible to reduce exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.

How This Guide Was Developed

The produce ranking was developed by analysts at the not-for-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) based on the results of nearly 43,000 tests for pesticides on produce collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2000 and 2004. A detailed description of the criteria used in developing the rankings is available as well as a full list of fresh fruits and vegetables that have been tested (see below).

EWG is a not-for-profit environmental research organization dedicated to improving public health and protecting the environment by reducing pollution in air, water and food. For more information please visit www.ewg.org.

Partial List: (for the full list, visit: http://www.foodnews.org/)

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=132239

By NARA K. NAHM

He was just about the only member of the freshman class to appear on “Good Morning, America” this fall, but Reed N. Colfax ‘92 kept quiet about it.

The Matthews Hall resident and prospective Afro-American Studies concentrator has two brothers who attended Harvard, so he was well prepared for the fanfare that would accompany his enrollment.

Reed and his brothers, J. Drew Colfax ‘90 and Grant N. Colfax ‘87, are among the approximately 500,000 students who are taught at home by their parents instead of attending regular schools. Their 13-year-old brother, Garth M.A. Colfax, is still at home.

Although “homeschooling,” may be more and more popular around the country, it hasn’t yielded many Harvard students. Dean of Admissions William J. Fitzsimmons ‘67, says he would not comment specifically on the Colfaxes but adds that about five to 10 homeschooled students apply each year to Harvard.

And Fitzsimmons says that, on the whole, homeschooling is an educational asset that Harvard considers favorably when making its admissions decisions. “One often sees a self-reliance and independence, as well as intellectual curiosity in people with unusual educational experiences,” Fitzsimmons says. Homeschooled students, he says, “do just as well as most all students who come here do.”

The Colfaxes, who live on a ranch in California and are largely what they describe as “self-taught,” have had almost no formal education. So the experience of Harvard classes, dorm life and homework assignments seemed almost foreign to the brothers when they arrived here.

But homeschooling certainly hasn’t handicapped the Colfaxes’ intellectual achievement. Grant is currently in New Zealand on a Fulbright Scholarship and plans to attend Harvard Medical School in the fall. A magna cum laude graduate in biology, Grant won a Hoopes Prize for his thesis.

And Reed says he took three Achievement Tests and scored 1310 on his SATs.

While homeschooling hasn’t affected the Colfaxes’ academic performance, it doesn’t seem to have hindered their social development, either. Reed, for one, says he is adjusting well to the rigors of Harvard life.

“I was surprised by the mark of maturity in Reed,” says his proctor, J.B. Schramm, a third-year student at the Divinity School. “He didn’t have the predictable freshman fluster.”

Schramm, who says Reed is unassuming about his unusual educational background, concludes, “They must breed them well up in the goat farm.”

And Reed says, “I’m having a great time.” Life at Harvard is probably easier than life on the ranch, where “we did a lot of hard physical labor and had to get up very early,” he says.

The unusual circumstances of life on the ranch meant that the brothers themselves took responsibility for their own educations. Starting in 1973, when the Colfaxes moved to California from St. Louis, Missouri, the boys took on their own projects and helped each other learn everything from basic algebra to plumbing.

The oldest son, Grant, began his education at a public school in St. Louis, but his parents removed him after six weeks when they decided the education there was “very rote and uncreative.” Mother Micki Colfax, who has a master’s from the London School of Economics, says she was happier with Grant’s next school, a private alternative education school, but decided to begin teaching at home when they moved to California.

At the time they moved to Boonville, California Reed was two, Drew was five and Grant was eight. “The [local] school…was notoriously bad,” Reed says. He says his parents did not plan to make the homeschooling a permanent arrangement, but “it just kept working, so we kept doing it.”

When the family moved to California, the land consisted of 40 acres of woods, with no house, electricity or running water. Everyone, including the young sons, helped to build the house, as well as smaller barns and sheds.

The family raises sheep, goats, chickens, pigs and other animals to sell to San Francisco restaurants. They also raise show animals.

“We were all learning new things together,” Micki Colfax says. “It was a challenge we thought we could handle…If there was something in the day we felt we couldn’t master, we would just turn around and try it the next day.”

The sons “took an enormous amount of initiative on the ranch” from the beginning, working themselves to the point of physical and mental “exhaustion,” Micki Colfax says. She says she still remembers Drew, at age 5, on the roof hammering nails. “He was so small but so anxious to help,” she recalls.

As the Colfax family built their ranch from scratch, they evolved their own educational method to handle the boys’ education.

Their mother says the children used few “formal” textbooks, but instead read novels and instruction manuals. Their favorite books include Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks by Donald Harington, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, The Double Helix by James Watson and Homer’s Iliad.

The family took a “very pragmatic approach” to learning math and science, she says. For instance, Reed and Drew learned about electrical wiring from reading manuals in order to install a phone and a 12-volt system for the family television.

The children taught themselves to a large extent, according to Reed. “After I was about 10,” Reed says, “it was pretty much self-teaching. I would order textbooks with my parents, but in math, for example, I don’t think either of my parents knew where I was after I was 13.”

“Our schedules were very unstructured,” Reed says. “Some days we did a lot of homework, some days we had none. It depended on the weather and what had to be done on the ranch.” On the average, however, Reed says he and his brothers would study four or five days each week, during the summer as well.

“Maybe we would work three hours in one day,” Reed says. “But we would get as much done as you would in an elementary or high school in eight hours. It took a lot of discipline,” Reed says of his learning, “but it was easy since it was the only thing we knew to do.”

But although the Colfax children spent most of their time working and studying on the ranch, they also participated in some community activities when they were younger. Reed was involved in 4-H, which he describes as “a sort of agricultural Boy Scouts,” as well as an adult soccer league and cross-country track races.

Reed now says that those extracurricular activities offered him a chance to interact with others his age, since only a few other children in his area were also homeschooled, and most of them went to school by the age of 12 or 13.

Drew says, “I realized I was missing out on some things, but it didn’t bother me that much. I also missed a lot of crap.” Drew, who is considering becoming a teacher, says he felt prepared for college life and perhaps had an advantage over his peers who had gone to school.

“Others come to college as superstars from high school and suffer a big blow when they get here,” he says.

The family never regretted homeschooling, Micki Colfax says. “I think my sons are creative and bright and highly motivated. I think they are highly motivated because they always saw immediate results and got a sense of accomplishment from everything they did.”

When asked whether they would also home-school their own children, both Reed and Drew say it would depend on where they were living, how much time they were able to spend with their children and how good the nearest schools were. “If I were in the same situation as my parents,” Reed says, “I would definitely teach them on my own. I am glad I was homeschooled.”

The choice to homeschool their children was an unconventional one for Micki and David Colfax, both of whom went through the traditional American public education track. Micki Colfax says they both found the “normal route” of education “rather static,” adding that “things have gotten a lot worse in American education since the ’40s and ’50s, when they attended primary and secondary school.

Both parents are graduates of Pennsylvania State college. David Colfax, who holds a Ph.D in sociology from the University of Chicago, has written several books. In 1988, the couple published Homeschooling for Excellence, and they are currently writing a second book about homeschooling and “living on the land,” Micki Colfax says.

When parents call the Colfaxes for advice, Micki Colfax says they “don’t pretend to have any answers. We are uncomfortable with the idea of being experts.” Her main advice for parents who want to homeschool their children is that they should relax. “They get too frustrated,” she says.

“Any reasonably intelligent parents can homeschool” their children, Micki Colfax says. “It takes a lot of patience…Having a child with you 24-hours-a-day seems to take a lot of time, but to us it just seemed to be the norm,” she says.

She says the couple has a “high regard for schools that do a good job.” She insists that the decision to homeschool their sons was not a sign of contempt for the American education system.

“We did not move to the land to make a statement about society,” Micki Colfax says, “but probably did ultimately by sending three kids to Harvard.”

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/2330/index.html

Eye infections: Squirt in an open or closed eye. If the eye is closed have the person lie back, squirt it, then open his or her eye. 4 times or more per day.

Plugged eye ducts: Squirt into the eye crease at the nose. Do this 4 times one day and 2 times the next.

Conjuctivitis (”Pink Eye”): Same as Plugged eye ducts, but continute with 4 times daily until the crust is gone.

Sties: Same as Conjunctivitis.

Sore/cracked nipples: Rub into nipples and air dry.

Scratches: Squirt and air dry, bandage, etc. as normal.

Scrapes: Same as scratches.

Burns: Same as scratches.

Gouges: Same as scratches.

Diaper rash: Squirt and air dry.

Mosquito bites: Squirt on bite and rub in. Stops the itching.

Ant bites: Same as Mosquito bites.

Ear infections: Squirt or pour into sore ear. Can follow with warm (not hot) olive oil and garlic.

Yeast infections: I don’t know the logistics on this one, yet.

Acne: Wash face with water, then follow with breastmilk squirted onto a cotton (be sure it’s cotton, that synthetic stuff can scratch the surface of your skin and cause problems) puff and apply all over face.

Sore throats: Anyone who will let you can be helped by a squirt of breastmilk. Either by direct squirt or if applied from a sterile plastic cup.

Stuffy noses: Squirt into nose and suction or squeeze out as you would with saline.

Sexual lubricant (male and female): (males) squirt directly onto penis; (females) hand express breast milk into a sterile cup…use as you would use KY Jelly, vaseline, or AstroGlide.

Contact lenses: If you have an irritant under your lens and forgot your eyedrops, take it out, hand express to get a nice little stream going to rinse contact off.

Eye puffiness and redness: Express breastmilk and pour over eyes. Does as good of job, if not better, than tea bags!

Breast cancer: Recent studies suggests that just the simple and natural act of breastfeeding can benefit mom as well by providing protection against breast cancer.

Tooth decay: Scientist have tried to grow bacteria in breastmilk and have been unsuccessful!

Cold sores/Fever blisters: Express a small amount of breastmilk onto clean finger and apply immediately to cold sore. Ends pain and helps speed the healing process.

Chicken pox: Use as you would Calamine Lotion or some other ointment.

Leg ulcers: Someone has claimed of hearing about a breastfeeding mother putting breastmilk on an elderly relative’s unhealing leg ulcers, it cleared them up too. I don’t know how long it took.

Chapped lips/skin: Express a small amount onto fingers and wipe over lips or skin. Do not rub it in…leave a little wet. (This feels great on my chapped lips and it normally only takes a day or two to clear!)

http://www.newstarget.com/021731.html

Commentary by Mike Adams, the creator of this cartoon:

Humans are the only species on the planet who actually go out of their way to feed their children crap. All other animals instinctly seek out the best nutrition they can find. Birds find grubs, worms and insects to feed their young, honeybees painstakingly collect pollen and create a nutrient-rich superfood that gives rise to a living queen bee, and even dogs, cats and cows try to find the most nutrient-rich foods to offer their offspring.

But humans? Most of them “reward” their children with junk food, sugary sodas, candy laced with petrochemical coloring additives and refined sugars that promote obesity and diabetes. Most parents don’t even make any real effort to follow nutritional discipline at home — they simply buy whatever their children saw advertised on television, caving in to the all-powerful “nag factor” that junk food companies fully exploit when marketing to children.

As a result, human children are the least healthy youngsters of any species on the planet. Baby dolphins are healthier than baby humans, for example, and they are born with healthier nervous systems, fewer toxins and a lot more common sense.

Speaking of common sense, nearly all mammals have the common sense to feed their children their own mother’s milk. A kitten, for example, will drink cat’s milk from its mother. A puppy will drink dog’s milk from its mother. A baby horse will drink horse’s milk from its mother. But humans? We’re sorta stupid. We mostly drink cow’s milk. (And the dairy industry insisted for decades it was better for infants than human milk!)

Of all the mammals on planet Earth, only humans are dumb enough to seek out the mammary gland juice of another species while shunning the breast milk of their own species. And did we choose the milk of a species SMARTER than us that might have more brain-boosting nutrients? Nope. We get our milk from a low-IQ species well suited to pulling a plow. Cow’s milk ain’t exactly brain nutrition, folks. Some people have a hard time understanding that because they’ve been drinking too much of the stuff and those mushy neurons crammed into their thick skulls are firing a bit on the slow side. (A lack of DHA does wonders for boosting stupidity scores.)

Humans, by the way, are not only so collectively short-sighted that they feed their children crap foods and beverages, they actually still haven’t figured out why so many of their children are obese and diabetic! It’s like beating yourself on the hand with a hammer and wondering why your fingers hurt. Gee, the evidence isn’t that difficult to figure out, folks. If you feed your kids sugar, white flour, toxic chemical additives, mind-altering pharmaceuticals and toxic shampoos, lotions and toothpaste, you’re gonna end up with mutant children who aren’t exactly Nobel Prize material.

This isn’t rocket science. The real mystery is how the food companies keep getting away with all the denial of the evidence linking processed foods and beverages to childrens’ health problems. I guess it helps that they influence the government regulators and practically own the mainstream media. They also buy all the prime shelf space at grocery stores, sponsor the big sporting events, and have successfully infiltrated schools and hospitals with junk food restaurants and vending machines. Heck, there’s still a McDonald’s restaurant in the Cleveland Clinic where they perform heart surgery!

If the birds and the bees have figured out how to raise healthy offspring, you’d think that humans might have the brain power to raise their own healthy children, too. And some parents are. There are lots of great parents out there raising kids on a macrobiotic diet, a vegetarian diet or a zero-processed-foods diet. Many of those parents are home schoolers, by the way. Good job to all the parents who actually teach their children healthful eating habits! Keep up the goog work!

Unfortunately, those parents are rare. Most parents just buy whatever crap is being peddled on TV these days. And they feed their kids cancer-causing processed meats, hyperactivity-causing food additives and obesity-promoting refined sugars. They load ‘em up on high-fructose corn syrup and then wonder why little Johnny weighs 150 pounds. (Must be the genes, they think. Cause daddy’s overweight, too.)

And even though some individuals and corporations may get financially rich by selling this junk to families, the bottom line is that we’re all worse off when we raise unhealthy children in society. Why? Because the future cost of treating disease — not to mention the loss of lifetime productivity — is jaw-droppingly HUGE. It’s enough to bankrupt our nation, which is, coincidentally, what seems likely to happen in due course. No democracy has ever survived its citizens losing their health.

We could learn a lot by listening to nature on the subject of nutrition. Most animals eat a raw foods, vegetarian diet. Even the birds and the bees have something important to teach us about nutrition: feed your children right, and your species will survive and thrive. But feed your children crap and your family tree becomes a dead stump in the dirt.

If you’re a parent, I urge you to make an effort to introduce your children to a diet of unprocessed, natural foods. If they’ve been on a sugared-up diet of processed foods so far, they will of course whine about it. But your job as the parent is to give your children what’s best for their health, not what they really really want because their taste buds tell them so.

Always breastfeed newborns and don’t believe the B.S. about infant formula being just as good as mother’s milk (nothing’s as good for infants as the real thing). Don’t bring sugar and soda into your house, and don’t reward kids with junk food. That only trains them to associate pleasure with unhealthful foods, and that’s a curse that could haunt them for the rest of their adult life.

Feed them right and you’ll give them the best gift any parent could hope to offer: a healthful, self-aware future, free from chemicals and disease.

http://www.newstarget.com/021714.html

Commentary by Mike Adams, the creator of this cartoon:

When it comes to pharmaceuticals, the term “side effects” is commonly used and generally understood to indicate something undesirable. But what many people don’t realize is that all the effects are side effects. In other words, if you ingest a foreign chemical (a medication), it’s going to produce certain biochemical effects in the body. Some of those effects are toxic and dangerous, and they’re typically called “side effects.” Other effects are considered “good” (like chemically suffocating the liver so it doesn’t produce cholesterol) and they’re called “therapeutic effects.” But in reality, they’re all side effects.

None of them are natural effects, and none of them are fundamentally compatible with natural human biochemistry. Although there are some exceptions, most drugs work by hijacking the body’s biochemistry, not by supporting it or complementing it. Cholesterol lowering drugs, for example, work by artificially shutting off cholesterol synthesis in the liver. But cholesterol isn’t the enemy here. It’s actually necessary for the production of sex hormones and vitamin D, and blocking cholesterol production directly interferes with the body’s own natural production of CoQ10 for cellular energy. That’s why people who take statin drugs often feel exhausted, depleted and near death’s door. Sure, their cholesterol number is lower. But at what cost to their health?

I find it amazing how quick consumers are to accept the damaging side effects of prescription drugs, even when those drugs offer only a slight improvement in some observable “therapeutic” effect that may not actually have any health benefit anyway. To use the same example, statin drugs really do lower the numbers representing cholesterol numbers in lab tests, but research shows that artificially lowered cholesterol saves no lives and does nothing to reduce the risk of heart attacks or strokes, especially in women. So, sure, the number is lower, but the patient is no healthier because of it!

It’s sort of like taking a group of low-IQ schoolchildren with failing math scores and giving them all a 25% scoring bonus just to help them pass the tests. They may end up with higher scores, but are they really any smarter? Of course not. And people taking cholesterol drugs aren’t any healthier, either.

Clever marketing gimmicks ensnare trusting consumers
The marketing of pharmaceuticals is based on exaggerating miniscule “benefits” of these patented chemicals while minimizing their enormous risks. Through fraudulent science, distorted advertising, corruption of regulators and a mainstream media happy to promote any agenda that generates repeat advertising dollars, the pharmaceutical industry is able to convince most Americans that synthetic chemicals are actually good for their health! At the same time, these consumers are taught by doctors that vitamins are dangerous, herbs are unproven and sunlight will kill you.

No wonder so many people are confused. That’s the whole point of all the pro-pharma propaganda — to confuse people into defaulting to the one authority figure they think they can trust: their doctors. So Big Pharma targets doctors with hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives, bribes and “consulting fees,” and many doctors just cave in and write out prescriptions for harmful, overpriced medications that ultimate serve no purpose other than the financial enrichment of the drug companies.

The scary part is that, by and large, doctors are convinced they cannot be influenced by drug reps or patients’ requests for brand-name drugs. They think they’re immune to influence. But careful studies show that doctors are surprisingly gullible, and their beliefs and opinions are easily swayed by any salesperson who dangles the mantra of “evidence-based medicine” in front of their eyes. What they’re never told, of course, is that the “evidence” is fictional and that doctors are really only considered glorified drug dispensing machines by pharmaceutical firms. If doctors could be legally replaced with prescription drug vending machines, drug companies would ditch the doctors in a second and start promoting the vending machines. (Don’t laugh… this may be coming soon to a convenience store near you…)

What would really be funny (and honest) would be to require drug advertisements to explain all the effects of the drugs using time segments proportional to their impact on patients. A typical 30-second drug ad for a weight loss medication, for example, might spend fifteen seconds repeating DIARRHEA, ten seconds screaming about NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES and only five seconds mentioning actual weight loss.

Cholesterol drugs, in the same way, might spend fifteen seconds talking about FATIGUE, ten seconds explaining LOSS OF SEX DRIVE and only five seconds on LOWER CHOLESTEROL NUMBERS (that won’t make you any healthier anyway).

Drug companies work hard to hide the side effects in small print so that patients and doctors won’t notice them. And when one particular side effect kills enough patients to get noticed by somebody, the FDA takes to the podium and announces that one particular side effect will now appear in, “Not so small print” — or, as they call it, a “black box warning.” Notice it’s not a “large red warning” but rather a tiny “black box warning.” It’s about the size of text on an electronic toy that proclaims, “Batteries not included.”

That’s about as urgent as the FDA ever gets about drug side effects warnings. Raising too much alarm, they think, might scare patients away who could “benefit” from the drugs. From the point of view of Big Pharma and the FDA, it’s better for everyone to remain ignorant of dangerous side effects than to lose a few patients who might be honestly informed.

The origins of this cartoon
The idea for this cartoon came about, by the way, following a desperate trip to Walgreens trying to find some cottonballs and rubbing alcohol for acupuncture. Wandering around near the back of the store where they strategically position the pharmacy (so you have to walk through all the aisles of junk food and beverage crap that gave you the diseases that caused you to need medication in the first place), I overhead a pharmacist reading off a long list of alarming side effects to an older gentleman standing there buying his medication. The list was downright jaw-dropping. I remember thinking to myself, “How can you stand there listening to all these side effects and then eat those pills?”

Patients, apparently, no longer pay any attention to side effects. Which is just as well, since doctors and drug companies don’t either. Everybody just pretends side effects don’t exist, and when they become so obvious that they cannot be ignored any longer, doctors simply label the symptoms a new disease requiring yet another medication.

So, for example, if you are diagnosed with depression, you’ll be given a depression drug that causes diabetes. And when your diabetes becomes so obvious that it can no longer be ignored, you’ll be diagnosed as “diabetic” and given diabetes drugs. When those drugs partially destroy your liver, you’ll be given drugs for liver disease. And the whole medicine game continues until your kidneys, heart and brain are transformed into medication mush.

And this will all be conducted with a great degree of apparent seriousness and scientific scrutiny by those professionals profiting from your voluntary participation. The whole system has all the trappings of real medicine — the diplomas on the wall, the lab coats worn by doctors, the safety approval of government regulators — and yet it is nothing more than a grand profiteering hoax that operates under the illusion of health care. The people who profit from our modern medical hoax vigorously defend the whole charade, often with impressive insistence that they are somehow helping people. Those who know better, however, are escaping the chemical confines of conventional medicine and seeking alternative or complementary health modalities.

Ultimately, conventional (western) medicine will collapse upon its own blatant failures, to be replaced by a new age of medicine where disease prevention — not treatment — keeps people healthy, vibrant and productive without bankrupting the nation in the process.

###

http://www.newstarget.com/021690.html

Commentary by Mike Adams, the creator of this cartoon:

American consumers, it seems, are frequently warned about the mercury content of seafood. Even the FDA now warns pregnant women not to eat seafood due to its mercury content. But did you ever wonder about the health effects of all the mercury being put into the mouths of children and adults in the form of mercury fillings? (Dentists call them “silver fillings” to conceal the fact that they’re made with about 40% mercury.)

Thanks to the continued promotion of mercury fillings by the American Dental Association and conventional dentists, consumers continue to be poisoned by this heavy metal that’s intentionally placed into their mouths. There’s so much mercury currently being put into the mouths of humans that the total volume of mercury being dumped into the environment from mercury fillings is nearly equal to that emitted by coal plants.

In fact, the mouth of the average consumer is so toxic that ocean creatures should be warning each other about eating humans. To consume a human being, to put it bluntly, would be extremely unhealthy for any animal. Humans carry the highest concentration of toxic chemicals of all creatures on the planet. Their livers, hearts, kidneys and brains are so heavily contaminated with hundreds of different synthetic chemicals that if humans were slaughtered as a meat source, they’d never pass USDA food safety standards. (Soylent Green, anyone?)

Did you ever wonder what ocean creatures might say to humans if they could speak English? Maybe something like, “Hey, stop flushing all your crap into our homes!” And they’d be right to complain about it, too.

To put this into perspective, imagine all the dolphins, whales, lobsters, stingrays, swordfish and octopi in the ocean suddenly marching up the beaches, sloshing their way into your home and taking a crap in your living room. We do far worse to them, however, because we don’t just dispose of organic matter, we actually lace it with fragrance chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, medications, heavy metals, industrial waste and even radioactive substances.

Cruise ships and Navy vessels routinely flush raw sewage overboard, right into the ocean, even though doing so is a violation of international law. Out in the middle of the South Pacific, who’s watching anyway?

There are some parts of the ocean where currents concentrate human garbage that will float: soda bottles, yogurt cups, milk jugs, styrofoam packaging and the like. The stuff is so thick that you can actually walk across this “island of garbage” on foot, unaided, without sinking. It’s as if humans were creating another land mass made out of landfill. Soon, somebody will probably build condos there are sell them online as “ocean front property!”

If there’s any group of beings on this planet that should be warned about another group of beings, it’s the ocean creatures who should be warned about humans. In fact, there should be a large red warning side slapped on the side of the planet, clearly visible to all creatures and interstellar visitors, that reads:

WARNING: Don’t feed the humans.
(They haven’t yet learned how to clean up after themselves.)

We’re still chewing on mercury, for crying out loud. How stupid is that?

P.S. Did you know you can protect yourself from mercury using nutritional supplements and superfoods? Taking chlorella and spirulina helps remove mercury and other heavy metals. Drinking cilantro in a smoothie also does the trick. Uber-nutritionist Jon Barron has a product called Metal Magic that combines these two ingredients. Check out www.BaselineNutritionals.com

Dr. Gabriel Cousens also uses Natural Cellular Defense to help remove heavy metals. He’s a raw foods guru and a pioneer in vibrational nutrition. Check out his info (and his raw foods retreat) at www.TreeofLife.nu

Learn More:
See the video! Smoking teeth = poison gas, at http://www.iaomt.org

See Pat Sullivan and Jigsaw Health at http://www.patsullivan.com

Also visit http://www.mercurypoisoned.com

http://www.newstarget.com/021703.html

Triclosan, widely used as an antibacterial ingredient in household hand sterilization products, breaks down rapidly when exposed to chlorinated water and produces toxic chemicals including chloroform, according to a study published on the Environmental Science & Technology research website As Soon As Publishable (ASAP), suggesting that many antibacterial products may not only be ineffective, but harmful.

Jump directly to: conventional view | alternative view | resources | bottom line

What you need to know - Conventional View
• A previous study demonstrated that pure triclosan reacts with free chlorine to produce chloroform, a toxic chemical and probable carcinogen.

• This 2005 study led to the removal of all triclosan-containing products from the British chain Marks & Spencer, as well as all triclosan-containing toothpaste from stores in China.

• In the new study, the same researchers from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University tested 16 household products, including lotions, soaps and body washes. All the products containing triclosan produced either chloroform or other chlorine byproducts when exposed to tap water.

• The researchers found that people using these products would be exposed to chloroform levels 40 percent higher than that found in tap water.

• Triclosan decomposes into chlorine byproducts in as little as one minute when exposed to chlorinated water at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature commonly reached in household use. This led the researchers to question whether triclosan-containing soaps even provide the purported anti-bacterial benefit.

• Quote: “At fairly low levels of chlorine, the triclosan degrades rapidly [into chlorine byproducts].” - Researcher Peter Vikesland

What you need to know - Alternative View
Statements and opinions by Mike Adams, executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center

• What this groundbreaking study reveals is that antibacterial products containing triclosan are a hoax. This chemical is proving to be a real threat to human health, and that doesn’t even include the fact that it can accelerate the breeding of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

• I strongly advise consumers to avoid purchasing antibacterial products made with triclosan. Use natural products containing tea tree oil or other herbal ingredients that are naturally antibacterial.

Resources you need to know
• Worldwatch Institute page on triclosan: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1501

Bottom line
• Antibacterial ingredient triclosan degrades rapidly when exposed to chlorinated tap water, producing potentially toxic byproducts.

http://www.newstarget.com/021707.html

(NewsTarget) Top U.S. lawmakers at a recent hearing criticized the FDA for drug safety problems. The hearing focused on the FDA’s handling of a Sanofi-Aventis antibiotic, called Ketek, and several prescription anti-depressants. Problems with these drugs, and also Merck’s now-withdrawn Vioxx, were cited.

The hearing included accusations that the FDA stifled scientific dissent regarding the safety of these drugs. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, questioned whether the FDA is working for the American people.

“With each of these drugs, it appears that the FDA is not seriously questioning whether the risks outweigh the benefits of the new drug,” Stupak said at the hearing. “One must ask, if the FDA is not protecting its client, the American people, whose interest is being protected?”

The hearing included a whistleblower from inside the FDA who said the agency has not improved its ability to protect patients from harmful drugs like Vioxx. David Graham, an associate director in the FDA office that monitors how drugs on the market interact with patients, previously spoke in 2004 to Congress regarding the FDA.

“There is no longer any question whatsoever that the FDA acts primarily to protect the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies at the expense of public health,” said consumer health advocate Mike Adams, author of a book blasting the FDA, titled Natural Health Solutions.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at the hearing that the FDA is not friendly to hearing problems with drugs, stating that within the agency “scientific dissent is discouraged, quashed and sometimes muzzled.”

On Monday, the FDA withdrew its approval for two of the three uses for Ketek - treatment of sinusitis and bronchitis - after reports of severe liver damage among patients started to surface last year. It still is approved for pneumonia. Ketek was approved by the FDA in April 2004.

Vioxx, approved in 1998, was voluntarily withdrawn by Merck in 2004 due to concerns about an increased risk of heart attack and stroke associated with long-term, high-dosage use.

In addition to charging that the FDA works in favor of Big Pharma instead of the American citizenry, Adams said that the FDA has taken actions that cripple the advances of natural health remedies.

“They’ve raided vitamin shops with armed agents, terrorized a church that was helping people deal with mental health challenges, ordered the destruction of recipe books promoting a natural herbal sweetener, confiscated tens of millions of dollars in nutritional supplements, stifled scientific scrutiny within their own ranks, censored nutritional supplement companies and essentially have engaged in a war of medical tyranny against the alternative health community,” Adams said.

NewsTarget.com

Originally published March 9 2007 SDA approves mass planting of GM rice made with human genes

by David Gutierrez

(NewsTarget) For the first time, the USDA has given preliminary approval for large-scale planting of a genetically engineered food crop containing human genes. The rice grains, produced by California-based Ventria Bioscience, synthesize a human immune protein. The public comment period for this decision lasts until March 30, after which the decision will be finalized.

Jump directly to: conventional view | alternative view | resources | bottom line

What you need to know - Conventional View

• The USDA has tentatively approved a petition by Ventria to plant up to 3,200 acres of the modified rice in Geary County, Kan. If the approval stands, Ventria will begin by planting 450 acres this spring.

• Previously, Ventria had sought to grow the rice in Missouri, but the plan was abandoned when Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. threatened to boycott all rice from the state. Anheuser-Busch, a beer maker, is the country’s foremost buyer of rice.

• Anheuser-Busch had the same concern as many critics of genetically engineered plants, which is that genes from engineered varieties may spread to and “genetically pollute” non-engineered or even wild relatives of the plants.

• Critics of the USDA’s decision have expressed concern that genetic pollution in this case could cause potentially dangerous pharmacological proteins to contaminate the food supply. The same day that the USDA gave the new rice the green light, it announced that rice seed in Arkansas had become contaminated by a different genetically engineered strain not approved for consumption. This was discovered while investigating the widespread contamination of rice in the U.S. with yet another genetically modified strain.

• According to Ventria, the genetically engineered rice could allow the cheap production of immune proteins that have been shown to help children recover faster from severe diarrhea. It is seeking FDA approval to add the protein to foods such as yogurt and granola.

• Quote: “This is not a product that everyone would want to consume. It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.” - Jane Rissler, Union of Concerned Scientists

What you need to know - Alternative View

Statements and opinions by Mike Adams, author for Truth Publishing

• These experiments with genetically modified crops are, in my view, extremely dangerous and may ultimately lead to a genetic Chernobyl that could devastate the U.S. food supply. Such crops should never be allowed to be planted in the open.

• In giving this preliminary approval, the USDA seems to be once again leaning towards protecting corporate profits rather than public health. The motives of a regulatory agency that would allow such crops to be planted in open fields are highly questionable.

Resources you need to know

• Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org)

• Ventria Bioscience (http://www.ventria.com)

• USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service public comment notice (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/fedregister/BRS_20070228a.pdf)

• More about genetically modified foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_foods)

Bottom line

• The USDA has given preliminary approval for the planting of rice engineered to produce human immune proteins, and the agency will accept public comments on the decision until March 30.

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