Friday, May 31, 2013

The Terrifying Offspring of GMO Salmon and Wild Trout

Yahoo News
by Soren Dreier

It doesn’t happen often in nature, but now and then, a wild Atlantic salmon (yes, there are still a few left) mates with a brown trout and has hybrid offspring.

This ability to reproduce between species had some Canadian scientists curious: If a genetically modified Atlantic salmon were to come in contact with a brown trout, would it too be able to have little transgenes babies? The answer is yes, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. And it turns out that those offspring carry the genetically inserted trait that allows them to grow faster than their Mother-Nature-made cousins. Much faster. In fact, the hybrid offspring outgrew their genetically tweaked parents as well.

“When the fish were placed in a mocked-up stream inside the laboratory, the researchers found that the hybrids were out-competing both the genetically modified salmon and wild salmon, significantly stunting their growth,” writes Rebecca Morelle, science reporter for BBC News.

“They’re like the super offspring,” George Leonard, director of strategic initiatives, Ocean Conservancy, tells TakePart. The fact that these fast-growing fry even exist and can thrive may contradict the FDA’s own environmental assessment report, which says genetically engineered salmon’s ability to survive and reproduce in the wild is extremely remote, calling into question the agency’s finding of no significant impact.

Ron Stotish, AquaBounty’s CEO, responded to the study in a statement, reminding the public that the AquaAdvantage salmon are all female, triploid (which means they are sterile), and will be raised on land-based systems.

But the researcher’s paper concludes that, “hybridization of transgenic fishes with closely related species represents potential ecological risks for wild populations and a possible route for introgression of a transgene, however low the likelihood, into a new species in nature.”

“There’s been a whole debate about whether there would be any potential ecological consequences,” says Leonard. “This is a strong smoking gun that there could be. Hybrids occurred. They survived, and what’s more troubling, is that they were more competitive than the wild or pure GE fish.”

“My question is what does the FDA say now? This paper was not part of the record. Does the FDA conclude that there’s still nothing to worry about?” he asks.

FDA spokesperson Siobhan DeLancey tells TakePart that a decision on the application by AquaBounty for its genetically engineered salmon still has not been made.

“We’re considering all the available science, including recently published papers such as this one,” she says. While the new study and FDA’s consideration of it may potentially disrupt or delay the GMO salmon’s approval, consumer advocacy group Campaign for Genetically Engineered (GE)-Free Seafood continue with plans trying to keep the fish out of supermarkets. Yesterday the group announced that they’ve now secured a total of 59 retailers who pledge not to sell genetically engineered seafood, adding Target, Giant Eagle, H-E-B, and Meijer to the growing list—a campaign we reported on back in March.

“When it looked like the FDA was going to approve the fish, we took our fight to the public to make sure there wouldn’t be a market for the genetically engineered fish if it’s approved, or at the very least, that customers could know where they could go to buy GE-free seafood if they want,” said Erick Hoffman, food and technology policy campaigner for Friends of the Earth. Next on their list? Chefs, restaurants and seafood companies.

“This is a long-term effort for us,” says Hoffman.

Indeed, but given Ron Stotish’s nearly two decade-long effort to get a genetically modified salmon onto your dinner plate, we’re wondering just how much longer the fight will be focused on this fish, knowing dozens more are in the works around the globe.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Modern Wheat Is The 'Perfect Chronic Poison' Says Expert

Prevent Disease
by NATASHA LONGO

The world's most popular grain is also the deadliest for the human metabolism. Modern wheat isn't really wheat at all and is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, author and leading expert on wheat.

Approximately 700 million tons of wheat are now cultivated worldwide making it the second most-produced grain after maize. It is grown on more land area than any other commerical crop and is considered a staple food for humans.

At some point in our history, this ancient grain was nutritious in some respects, however modern wheat really isn't wheat at all. Once agribusiness took over to develop a higher-yielding crop, wheat became hybridized to such an extent that it has been completely transformed from it's prehistorical genetic configuration. All nutrient content of modern wheat depreciated more than 30% in its natural unrefined state compared to its ancestral genetic line. The balance and ratio that mother nature created for wheat was also modified and human digestion and physiology could simply could not adapt quick enough to the changes.

Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."

Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight.

"If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."

To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "(It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax. It's going to be wheat.

The Nutrional Value of Wheat is Practically Non-Existent In Its Current Form

So-called health experts in nutrition who continue to promote the health benefits of wheat are extremely uninformed about the nature of modern wheat and its evolution from growth to consumption. It is shocking how many professionals in public health still recommend wheat products without an assessment of their individual requirements, especially considering the amount of evidence regarding its lack of nutrition and health risks for proportionally large segments of the population.


 The majority of wheat is processed into 60% extraction, bleached white flour. 60% extraction--the standard for most wheat products means that 40% of the original wheat grain is removed. So not only do we have an unhealthier, modified, and hybridized strain of wheat, we also remove and further degrade its nutritional value by processing it. Unfortunately, the 40% that gets removed includes the bran and the germ of the wheat grain--its most nutrient-rich parts.

In the process of making 60% extraction flour, over half of the vitamin B1, B2, B3, E, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron, and fiber are lost. Any processed foods with wheat are akin to poison for the body since they cause more health risks than benefits. The body does not recognize processed wheat as food. Nutrient absorption from processed wheat products is thus consequential with almost no nutritional value.

Some experts claim if you select 100% whole wheat products, the bran and the germ of the wheat will remain in your meals, and the health benefits will be impressive. This is again a falsity promoted by the wheat industry since even 100% whole wheat products are based on modern wheat strains created by irradiation of wheat seeds and embryos with chemicals, gamma rays, and high-dose X-rays to induce mutations. Whether you consume 10% or 100% of wheat is irrelevant since you're still consuming a health damaging grain that will not benefit, advance or even maintain your health in any way.

Dr. Marcia Alvarez who specializes in nutritional programs for obese patients says that when it comes to nutrition, wheat may be considered as an evil grain. "Modern wheat grains could certainly be considered as the root of all evil in the world of nutrition since they cause so many documented health problems across so many populations in the world." Dr. Alvarez asserted that wheat is now responsible for more intolerances than almost any other food in the world.

"In my practice of over two decades, we have documented that for every ten people with digestive problems, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, arthritis and even heart disease, eight out of ten have a problem with wheat. Once we remove wheat from their diets, most of their symptoms disappear within three to six months," she added. Dr. Alvarez estimates that between the coming influx of genetically modified (GM) strains of wheat and the current tendency of wheat elimination in societies, that a trend is emerging in the next 20 years that will likely see 80% of people cease their consumption of wheat from any form.

It's Really A Wheat Issue

Some health resources, such as the Mayo Clinic, advocate a more balanced diet that does include wheat. But Davis said on "CTM" they're just offering a poor alternative.

"All that literature says is to replace something bad, white enriched products with something less bad, whole grains, and there's an apparent health benefit - 'Let's eat a whole bunch of less bad things.' So I take...unfiltered cigarettes and replace with Salem filtered cigarettes, you should smoke the Salems. That's the logic of nutrition, it's a deeply flawed logic. What if I take it to the next level, and we say, 'Let's eliminate all grains,' what happens then?

"That's when you see, not improvements in health, that's when you see transformations in health."

Health Effects

A powerful little chemical in wheat known as 'wheat germ agglutinin' (WGA) which is largely responsible for many of wheat's pervasive, and difficult to diagnose, ill effects. Researchers are now discovering that WGA in modern wheat is very different from ancient strains. Not only does WGA throw a monkey wrench into our assumptions about the primary causes of wheat intolerance, but due to the fact that WGA is found in highest concentrations in "whole wheat," including its supposedly superior sprouted form, it also pulls the rug out from under one of the health food industry's favorite poster children.

Each grain of wheat contains about one microgram of Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA). Even in small quantities, WGA can have profoundly adverse effects. It may be pro-inflammatory, immunotoxic, cardiotoxic ... and neurotoxic.

Below the radar of conventional serological testing for antibodies against the various gluten proteins and genetic testing for disease susceptibility, the WGA “lectin problem” remains almost entirely obscured. Lectins, though found in all grains, seeds, legumes, dairy and our beloved nightshades: the tomato and potato, are rarely discussed in connection with health or illness, even when their presence in our diet may greatly reduce both the quality and length of our lives. Yet health experts dismiss the links between disease and wheat despite all the evidence.

Dr William Davis has documented several hundred clinical studies on the adverse effects of wheat. These are studies that document the neurologic impairments unique to wheat, including cerebellar ataxia and dementia; heart disease; visceral fat accumulation and all its attendant health consequences; the process of glycation via amylopectin A of wheat that leads to cataracts, diabetes, and arthritis; among others. There are, in fact, a wealth of studies documenting the adverse, often crippling, effects of wheat consumption in humans.

The other claim is that wheat elimination ‘means missing out on a wealth of essential nutrients. Another falsity. Dr. Davis states that if you replace wheat with healthy foods like vegetables, nuts, healthy oils, meats, eggs, cheese, avocados, and olives, then there is no nutrient deficiency that develops with elimination of wheat. Dr Davis also states that people with celiac disease may require long-term supplementation due to extensive gastrointenstinal damage caused by wheat.

People with celiac disease do indeed experience deficiencies of multiple vitamins and minerals after they eliminate all wheat and gluten from the diet. But this is not due to a diet lacking valuable nutrients, but from the incomplete healing of the gastrointestinal tract (such as the lining of the duodenum and proximal jejunum). In these people, the destructive effects of wheat are so overpowering that, unfortunately, some people never heal completely. These people do indeed require vitamin and mineral supplementation, as well as probiotics and pancreatic enzyme supplementation.

Due to the unique properties of amylopectin A, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar higher than many candy bars. High blood glucose leads to the process of glycation that, in turn, causes arthritis (cartilage glycation), cataracts (lens protein glycation), diabetes (glycotoxicity of pancreatic beta cells), hepatic de novo lipogenesis that increases triglycerides and, thereby, increases expression of atherogenic (heart disease-causing) small LDL particles, leading to heart attacks. Repetitive high blood sugars that develop from a grain-rich diet are, in my view, very destructive and lead to weight gain (specifically visceral fat), insulin resistance, leptin resistance (leading to obesity), and many of the health struggles that many now experience.

Wheat gliadin has been associated with cerebellar ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, gluten encephalopathy (dementia), behavioral outbursts in children with ADHD and autism, and paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia, severe and incapacitating effects for people suffering from these conditions.

According to statistics from the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, an average of one out of every 133 otherwise healthy people in the United States suffers from Celiac Disease (CD). However, an estimated 20-30 percent of the world's population may carry the genetic susceptibility to celiac disease--and the way to avoid turning these genes 'on' is by avoiding gluten.

When you consider that undiagnosed CD is associated with a nearly four-fold increased risk of premature death, the seriousness of this food sensitivity becomes quite evident. The primary disease mechanism at play is chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammatory and degenerative conditions are endemic to grain-consuming populations. Changes in genetic code and, thereby, antigenic profile, of the high-yield semi-dwarf wheat cultivars now on the market account for the marked increase in celiac potential nationwide. "Hybridization” techniques, including chemical mutagenesis to induce selective mutations, leads to development of unique strains that are not subject to animal or human safety testing--they are just brought to market and sold.

Wheat-Free Options

* Note that many of the wheat-free options still contain gluten and many people sensitive to wheat may still experience digestive problems and bloating. Experiment in see what works best for you. Caution is advised with cereal grains if you have diagnosed with gluen intolerance.

1. Cereal Grains: Barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, tef and wild rice are all in the same cereal grain family as is wheat. All flours ground from cereal grains may be used as a wheat substitute. Commonly available are barley, buckwheat, rice and rye flour. The less utilized flours may be purchased online or from natural food stores. Note: people with a gluten allergy must also avoid barley, oats and rye.

2. Non-Cereal Grains: Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are three grain-like seeds unrelated to cereal grains. (Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat-relative.) It is rare for anyone to develop a sensitivity to these non-cereal grains. Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are gluten-free and therefore not suitable for making leavened bread; however, they make excellent quick breads and cookies.

3. Nut Meal: Ground nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts make the richest flour substitute for cookies and cakes. Because their fragile fatty acid content gives them a brief shelf life, it’s preferable to grind your own nuts in a food processor just prior to use. Nut meal requires a binding agent such as eggs. Because chestnuts are lower in fat than other nuts, chestnut flour has a longer shelf life. It is available online.

4. Bean Flour: Dried beans, such as navy, pinto and chickpeas may be milled and used, in combination with other flours, as a wheat alternative. Bean flour is, however, not always recommended. It tastes like beans and makes baked goods dense and hard to digest.

5. Other Flour Substitutes: Potato starch, arrowroot powder, and tapioca are thickening agents that substitute for wheat in sauces and gravy. In baked goods these starchy ingredients serve as a binding agent.

VIRUSES, BACTERIA CAUSING PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESSES!


Youtube

This is really important so please watch the whole thing. Viruses such as strep and others can, in some children (and possibly adults) set off an autoimmune reaction where the body attacks brain cells in the basal ganglia, which result in psychiatric symptoms, i.e. 'mental illness'! The psych establishment offers only pharma drugs but evidence shows the psych symptoms can be REVERSED with biomedical treatment that addresses the underlying cause. This should change the way we look at mental illness, especially in children and especially when there is a sudden onset, in particular after a viral or bacterial illness. In the case of strep, this can happen even if antibiotics are given because the autoimmune response can be triggered as soon as the body has been infected.

Hungary torches 500 hectares of GM corn to eradicate GMOs from food supply


When it comes to protecting the public from GMOs, Hungary knows how to get the job done: set fire to the fields growing GM corn!

Although environmentalists might at first argue about the ramifications of burning so much organic matter right out in the open, the deeper truth is that genetic pollution poses a vastly more serious threat to our world, and burning GM corn is the one sure way to destroy the poisonous genetic code contained in plant tissues. In fact, I hope to see the day when the U.S. courts order the destruction of all GM corn fields across America. And I suspect that if the courts won't rise to the occasion, the People will sooner or later find a way to get it done on their own. Think "Army of the 12 Monkeys" but with a GMO slant.

Lajos Bognar, Hungary's Minister of Rural Development, reported this week that around 500 hectares of GM corn were ordered burned by the government. Hungary has criminalized the planting of genetically modified crops of any kind, and it has repeatedly burned thousands of hectares of illegal GM crops in years past.

This news was originally published in Portuguese at Rede Brasil Atual. An English translation has been posted at GMwatch.org.

GMOs are outlawed across the planet

GMOs have been banned in 27 countries, and GMOs are required to be labeled in at least 50 countries. In America, where Monsanto has deployed an insidious degree of influence over the legislature and courts, GMOs are neither illegal nor required to be labeled. In fact, 71 U.S. Senators recently voted against a measure that would have allowed states to pass their own food labeling laws.

Those Senators are now known as the Monsanto 71. The list includes Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, both senators from agricultural states (Kentucky and Texas) where Monsanto continues to exercise heavy influence over farmers.

Shockingly, most farmers who are planting GMOs have no knowledge whatsoever of what GMOs are or why people don't want them in their food. They've been lied to by the biotech industry which promised them "higher yields" and "greater profits." In reality, GM crop yields have plummeted even while giving rise to herbicide-resistant "superweeds" that now threaten many farms. With soils that have been rendered sterile with glyphosate and crop yields falling, farmers are increasingly finding themselves in dire straights.

Their only way out, of course, is to return to planting non-GMO crops. But wisdom moves very, very slowly through Texas A&M, a Monsanto stronghold and key propaganda center for pushing frankenfoods in the South.

A genetic apocalypse may devastate America's bread basket

Hungary was wise to protect its agricultural sector from Monsanto's imperialism. In contrast, America is incredibly foolish to sell out its food supply to destructive corporate interests that value nothing but profit.

By disallowing GMO labeling and promoting the continued commercialization of genetically modified crops (thanks, USDA!), the U.S. government is playing Russian roulette with America's food future. One day, something the scientists didn't anticipate will kick in, and the crimes against nature that have been committed by Monsanto will explode into a genetic apocalypse that threatens the future of life on our planet.

Remember: GMOs aren't merely "pollution" in the classic sense. They are self-replicating pollution that may be impossible to stop. Hence the wisdom of burning GM corn fields to the ground. Fire destroys DNA and breaks down vegetable matter into its elemental constituents: carbon and mineral ash, essentially. Fields that were once dangerous are now harmless. Fire restores sanity by destroying the engineered DNA dreamed up by mad scientists working for arrogant, foolish corporations who think they're smarter than Mother Nature and God.

Mark my words: there will come a day when Americans will wish they had burned all the GM corn fields to the ground. But by then it will be too late. The blight will be upon us, and with it comes the starvation, the suffering, the desperation and the riots. Hunger turns all family men into savages, just as greed turns all corporate men into demons.

To avoid both outcomes, we must banish GMOs now. Indict the executives of Monsanto for conspiracy to commit mass poisoning of the people. Invoke the RICO Act. Pull out the Patriot Act. Use whatever laws are on the books to put this monster away so that future generations do not have to suffer the devastating consequences of open-world genetic experiments gone awry.

Killing Bees In America & Worldwide Will Be The Death Of Humanity

Rense
by Frosty Wooldridge

The world-famous Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson speculates: "If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."

Each day, millions of middle class Americans across this country spray Roundup, Weed-Be-Gone, Termite Spray, Bug Killer, Wasp Spray and hundreds of other poisons onto their sidewalks, driveways, bushes, trees, flowers and onto their lawns. They kill everything that pecks, slithers, crawls, flaps, bites and breathes. Their mass slaughter includes bats, honey bees, flies, butterflies, mosquitoes, wasps, bumblebees and other pollinators. Billions upon trillions of insects suffer death via poisons that disrupt their breathing or digestive tracks.

As human life menacingly expands across the planet, it devours the natural world. It kills the balance of the natural world. It murders just about anything that flies, bites or burps. According to a High Country News report years ago, Americans kill 1 vertebrate crossing our roads (road kill) every 11.1 seconds. That equals to one million deaths every day of the year.(www.HighCountryNews.com) That equals 365 million creatures lose their lives to tires, boat propellers, fans, boats, jet intakes, aircraft propellers and other mechanical devices every single day of the year. Humans kill everything that runs, leaps, flies or swims—by the billions and trillions.

But we shall pay for our transgressions when it comes to the pollinators: bees, bats, wasps, butterflies and other insects.

Consider the coming collapse of the $30 billion honey bee economy in the US.

“Since 2006 honey bees responsible for pollinating more than 100 crops—from apples to zucchini—have been dying by the tens of millions,” said a Huffington Post report. “As a new report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) details, scientists are still struggling to pinpoint the cause of so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and time is running out. Currently, the survivorship of honey bee colonies is too low for us to be confident in our ability to meet the pollination demands of U.S. agricultural crops.”

The report said, “CCD has wiped out some 10 million bee hives worth $2 billion over the past six years. The death rate for colonies has hit 30% annually in recent years and there are now about 2.5 million honey bee colonies in the US, down from 6 million in 1947 and 3 million in 1990. That downward spiral leaves “virtually no cushion of bees for pollination.”

With mounting information, it becomes downright frightening. For example: take almonds. California harvests more than 80 percent of the world’s almonds. But you can’t grow the nut without honey bees and it takes 60 percent of the US’s remaining colonies to pollinate that one $4 billion cash crop.”

“If the death toll continues at the present rate, that means there will soon be barely enough bees to pollinate almonds, let alone avocadoes, blueberries, pears or plums. “We are one poor weather event or high winter bee loss away from a pollination disaster,” USDA scientist Jeff Pettis said in the report.

Jacques Cousteau worried about what humans were doing to the ecosystem: "If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe to be replaced by the insect."

Scientists report several factors—from disease-carrying parasites to pesticides. What sickens me stems from the fact that we know our chemicals disrupt every living creature in a cornfield, wheat field, potato field, tomato patch and bean acre. Yet we pour, spray and inject more and more poisons.

A beekeeper said, “Bees are vital to our lives as they are among the primary pollinators of our food plants. It has been deduced that if our native bees were to die out the effect on crops and wild flowers would be utterly catastrophic. As these crops and flowers provide food for our wild and farm animals we could easily lose up to a third of our regular diet. This is a very real problem, and one that is not getting the attention it needs.”

Bees and other pollinators allow humanity to thrive. Without them, we won’t survive the 21st century. I finding it particularly galling if not a whole new dimension of “stupid” for our species to continue expanding our numbers while we diminish insect numbers, rodent numbers, big beasts and avian numbers at a rate of one million daily via road kill in the USA alone. But the wholesale poisoning via such insane herbicides like Roundup makes me sick to my stomach. Those poisons travel into the ground, into the angleworms, into the birds, into the bugs and finally into the water systems where they ultimately poison each and every one of us. How can we be this stupid?

We wonder why 1 out of 3 Americans suffers from the biggest killer in the USA: cancer. How stupid can we prove ourselves? How absolutely out of touch and in denial of reality can we be? What kind of intellectually and morally bankrupt greedy money-mongers make TV commercials parading Roundup to millions of really stupid, ignorant and uninformed Americans too fat and too lazy to bend down and pull out the weeds on their driveway with their hands?

To think that within another 37 years, our country will grow by 137 million Americans while the rest of the world adds another 3 billion people—all capable of using Roundup and hundreds of other poisons to kill the bees of the world. We prove ourselves to be the smartest—dumbest species on this planet. I’ll toss in arrogant, self-righteous and insanely dull of mind to boot. Tama Janowitz puts the earthly competition between insects and humans this way: "Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches, will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars."

If you would like to make a difference, please join these organizations for the most effective collective action you can take: www.CapsWeb.org ; www.NumbersUSA.org ; www.TheSocialContract.com ; www.Fairus.org

Related: Accelerating Disappearance of Earth’s Species, Plants and Animals Is Threatening Survival of Humankind

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Top US Brand of Children's Vitamins Contains Aspartame, GMOs, & Other Hazardous Chemicals

GreenMedInfo
by Sayer Ji

The #1 Children's Vitamin Brand in the US contains ingredients that most parents would never intentionally expose their children to, so why aren't more opting for healthier alternatives?

Kids vitamins are supposed to be healthy, right? Well then, what's going on with Flintstones Vitamins, which proudly claims to be "Pediatricians' #1 Choice"? Produced by the global pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, this wildly success brand features a shocking list of unhealthy ingredients, including:

Aspartame
Cupric Oxide
Coal tar artificial coloring agents (FD&C Blue #2, Red #40, Yellow #6)
Zinc Oxide
Sorbitol
Ferrous Fumarate
Hydrogenated Oil (Soybean)
GMO Corn starch

On Bayer Health Science's Flintstones product page designed for healthcare professionals they lead into the product description with the following tidbit of information:

82% of kids aren't eating all of their veggies. Without enough vegetables, kids may not be getting all of the nutrients they need.

References: 1. Lorson BA, Melgar-Quinonez HR, Taylor CA. Correlates of fruit and vegetable intakes in US children. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109(3):474-478.

The implication? That Flintstones vitamins somehow fill this nutritional void. But let's look a little closer at some of these presumably healthy ingredients....

ASPARTAME

Aspartame is a synthetic combination of the amino acids aspartic acid and l-phenylalanine, and is known to convert into highly toxic methanol and formaldehyde in the body. Aspartame has been linked to over 40 adverse health effects in the biomedical literature, and has been shown to exhibit both neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity. What business does a chemical like this have doing in a children's vitamin, especially when non-toxic, non-synthetic non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia already exist?

CUPRIC OXIDE

Next, let's look closer at Cupric Oxide, 2mg of which is included in each serving of Flinstone's Complete chewable vitamins as a presumably 'nutritional' source of 'copper,' supplying "100% of the Daily Value (Ages 4+), according to Flintstones Vitamins Web site's Nutritional Info.

But what is Cupric Oxide? A nutrient or a chemical?

According to the European Union's Dangerous Substance Directive, one of the main EU laws concerning chemical safety, Cupric Oxide is listed as a Hazardous substance, classified as both "Harmful (XN)" and "Dangerous for the environment" (N). Consider that it has industrial applications as a pigment in ceramics, and as a chemical in the production of rayon fabric and dry cell batteries. In may be technically correct to call it a mineral, but should it be listed as a nutrient in a children's vitamin? We think not.

COAL TAR ARTIFICIAL COLORING AGENTS

A well-known side effect of using synthetic dyes is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. For direct access to study abstracts on this topic view our Food Coloring research page. There is also indication that the neurotoxicity of artificial food coloring agents increase when combined with aspartame, making the combination of ingredients in Flintstones even more concerning.

ZINC OXIDE

Each serving of Flinstones Complete Chewable vitamins contain 12 mg of zinc oxide, which the manufacturer claims delivers 75% of the Daily Value to children 2 & 3 years of age. Widely used as a sun protection factor (SPF) in sunscreens, The EU's Dangerous Substance Directive classifies it as an environmental Hazard, "Dangerous for the environment (N)." How it can be dangerous to the environment, but not for humans ingesting it, escapes me. One thing is for sure, if one is to ingest supplemental zinc, or market it for use by children, it makes much more sense using a form that is organically bound (i.e. 'chelated') to an amino acid like glycine, as it will be more bioavailable and less toxic.

SORBITOL

Sorbitol is a synthetic sugar substitute which is classified as a sugar alcohol. It can be argued that it has no place in the human diet, much less in a child's. The ingestion of higher amounts have been linked to gastrointestinal disturbances from abdominal pain to more serious conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome.

FERROUS FUMARATE

The one clear warning on the Flinstone's Web site concerns this chemical. While it is impossible to die from consuming iron from food, e.g. spinach, ferrous fumarate is an industrial mineral and not found in nature as food. In fact, ferrous fumarate is so toxic that accidental overdose of products containing this form is "a leading cause of fatal poisoning in children under 6." The manufacturer further warns:

Keep this product out of reach of children. In case of accidental overdose, call a doctor or poison control center immediately.

HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL

Finding hydrogenated oil in anything marketed to children is absolutely unacceptable. These semi-synthetic fatty acids incorporate into our tissues and have been linked to over a dozen adverse health effects, from coronary artery disease to cancer, violent behavior to fatty liver disease.

GMO CORN STARCH

While it can be argued that the amount of GMO corn starch in this product is negligible, even irrelevant, we disagree. It is important to hold accountable brands that refuse to label their products honestly, especially when they contain ingredients that have been produced through genetic modification. The 'vitamin C' listed as ascorbic acid in Flintstones is likely also produced from GMO corn. Let's remember that Bayer's Ag-biotech division, Bayer CropScience, poured $381,600 of cash into defeating the proposition 37 GMO labeling bill in California. Parents have a right to protect their children against the well-known dangers of genetically modified foods and the agrichemicals that contaminate them, don't they? GMO corn starch is GMO, plain and simple. We'd appreciate it if Bayer would label their "vitamins" accordingly.

In summary, Bayer's Flintstone's vitamin brand is far from a natural product, and the consumer should be aware of the unintended, adverse health effects that may occur as a result of using it.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

New study reveals how glyphosate in Monsanto's Roundup inhibits natural detoxification in human cells

Natural News
by Lance Devon

The modern age of industrial agriculture and manufacturing has dumped heavy metals, carninogens, plastics, and pesticides into the environment at alarming rates. These toxins are showing up in most human tissue cells today. One distinct chemical may be trapping these toxins in human cells, limiting the human body's ability to detoxify its own cells. In a new peer reviewed study, this sinister chemical, glyphosate, has been proven to inhibit the human cell's ability to detoxify altogether. Glyphosate, found in Monsanto's Roundup, is being deemed by publishers of the new study "one of the most dangerous chemicals" being unleashed into the environment today.

Download the PDF of the study here.

How glyphosate destroys human cells

Glyphosate, most commonly found in conventional sugar, corn, soy and wheat products, throws off the cytochrome P450 gene pathway, inhibiting enzyme production in the body. CYP enzymes play a crucial role in detoxifying xenobiotics, which include drugs, carcinogens, and pesticides. By inhibiting this natural detoxification process, glyphosate systematically enhances the damaging effects of other environmental toxins that get in the body. This, in turn, disrupts homeostasis, increases inflammation, and leads to a slow deconstruction of the cellular system. Toxins build up in the gut over time and break down through the intestinal walls, infiltrating blood, and ultimately passing through the brain/blood barrier, damaging neurological function.

Important CYP enzymes that are affected include aromatase, the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen, 21-Hydroxylase, which creates stress hormone cortisol, and aldosterone, which regulates blood pressure.

Getting to the gut

Even as evidence mounts, Monsanto asserts that glyphosate is not harmful to humans, citing that its mechanism of action in plants (the disruption of the shikimate pathway), is not present in humans. This is not true.

The shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan, is present in human gut bacteria, which has a direct relationship with the human body, aiding in digestion, synthesizing vitamins, detoxifying carcinogens, and participating in immune system function.

By inhibiting the body's gut flora from performing its essential function in the human body, glyphosate heightens many health issues facing the Western world today.

These conditions include inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease, obesity, and even dementia and depression. Also, by restricting gut bacteria from absorbing nutrients, glyphosate voids the body of essential life-giving vitamins.

Depletion of serum tryptophan and its link to obesity

Glysophate's damaging effects on gut bacteria lead to depleted sulfate supplies in the gut, resulting in inflammatory bowel disease. As more chemicals are absorbed from the environment, alterations in body chemistry actively promote weight gain by blocking nutrient absorption. By effecting CYP enzymes in the liver, obesity incidence is compounded, impairing the body's ability to detoxify synthetics chemicals. Since serotonin is derived from tryptophan and acts an appetite suppressant, the depletion of tryptophan encourages overeating in the brain, leading to obesity.

In need of urgent, massive awakening

Authors of the new review point out that "glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply and may be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment." Monsanto is already lashing back at these claims, calling this peer reviewed study, "bad science" and "another bogus study." What Monsanto fails to is mention that most of the studies on glyphosate's "safety" are conducted by Monsanto themselves, which is bias to the core.

The authors of this new study instead call out for more independent research to be done to validate their findings. They are concerned with glyphosate's inhibition of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes in the body, which are hindering the body's natural detoxification ability.

There is certainly a need for more empowering education on chemicals like glyphosate. There needs to be a kind of public mass awakening that correlates Monsanto's Roundup with skull and crossbones. If anything, Americans have the right to know how their food was produced, engineered, and poisoned, and everyone should pitch in and stop using toxic glyphosate-laced Roundup at all costs

Related:   The shikimate pathway as a target for herbicides

Friday, May 24, 2013

Student science experiment finds plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router

Mother Nature Network
by Jenn Savedge

Five ninth-grade young women from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community.

It started with an observation and a question. The girls noticed that if they slept with their mobile phones near their heads at night, they often had difficulty concentrating at school the next day. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone's radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to handle such an experiment. So the girls designed an experiment that would test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant instead.

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. Although by the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. While the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

The experiment earned the girls top honors in a regional science competition and the interest of scientists around the world.

According to Kim Horsevad, a teacher at Hjallerup Skole in Denmark were the cress experiment took place, a neuroscience professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, is interested in repeating the experiment in controlled professional scientific environments.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

MA wants to force widespread mandatory vaccine trials due to lack of volunteer participation

 Natural News
by Ethan A. Huff

The medical establishment is having trouble getting people to volunteer for new vaccine trials these days, which has prompted some in the medical industry to suggest that unwilling members of the public actually be forced to participate in order to promote the "greater good." This is the deranged opinion of two U.K.-based researchers, Susanne Sheehy and Joel Meyer, who wrote in a recent paper published by the American Medical Association (AMA) that a policy of "compulsory vaccination" may be necessary in order to achieve the long-term goals of the vaccine cartel in achieving total vaccine compliance.

The paper, which was published in the AMA's Virtual Mentor journal, outlines a new framework by which all Americans would be automatically enrolled in a system that makes them eligible for vaccine trials should the need arise, similar to how the current jury duty selection system works. If chosen upon to participate in a vaccine trial, in other words, an individual would be forcibly required to participate, unless he or she had previously "opted out" of the system through a formal registration process.

The authors argue that, because such a system of compulsory participation is already being used in many other countries for things like organ donation and jury duty, it should thus be implemented here in America to address the shortage of willing vaccine trial volunteers. The only problem; however -- and it is a huge problem -- is that complying with mandatory jury duty will not potentially cause you or your children to develop a neurological condition, and organ donation occurs after one has already died.

"If progression of promising vaccines from the lab to the clinic is to remain unaffected and financial inducement is an ethically unacceptable solution to the recruitment shortage, other strategies need to be considered," wrote the authors in their chilling piece. "In both conscription and obligatory trial participation, individuals have little or no choice regarding involvement and face inherent risks over which they have no control, all for the greater good of society."

Getting forcibly jabbed with neurotoxins is a little different than sharing your organs after you die

But what about the health risks involved? Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic and her colleague Dr. Christopher Shaw from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada recently published a paper of their own in the open-access journal Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs which shows that many common vaccines are linked to causing arthritis, vasculitis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), encephalopathy, neuropathy, seizure disorders, and autoimmune diseases -- skipping a day of work to serve on a jury, in other words, can hardly be compared to potentially developing a lifelong chronic illness as part of a mandatory vaccine trial.

"If the AMA gets [its] way, then it will not be long before you or your child could be included into vaccination trials, if you have not signed an 'opt out form,'" wrote Christina England, a U.K.-based journalist, in an extensive research piece for VacTruth.com about this very serious issue. "This means that if your child comes home with a form scrunched up at the bottom of [his or her] school bag and you do not find it, or if you forget to sign it, then the drug company will classify your absent-mindedness as passive consent and your child will be used as a pharmaceutical industry guinea pig."

The Chemical Castration of our Children’s Brains

Common Sense Show
by Dave Hodges

Government should not be in the business of mandating personal choices and government should never be allowed to legislate choices which should be reserved for parents with regard to their children’s health and welfare. The parents are sovereign over the welfare of their children, not the state.

In the name of increasing the corporate bottom line, the government watchdog industries of the DEA and FDA, as well as the office of the President, have become the willing lap dogs for Big Pharma and this unholy alliance is serving to endanger our children.

Big Pharma has gone to great lengths to increase sales to the youth of America either through chemically castrating our children’s brains or by producing drugs with very serious side effects which serve to seriously degrade both the brain and the body. Our children are being systematically destroyed by the pharmaceutical industry.

The Ritalin Conspiracy

Let’s make up a brain disorder, which parallels normal restlessness of children and then transform a dangerous drug, methamphetamine, and get as many kids on the drug as possible. It is good work if you can find it and pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Eli Lilly are leading the way in medical fraud and in the name of record corporate profits

The use of Ritalin has become so rampant, that even the DEA has become alarmed by the tremendous increase in the prescribing of these drugs in recent years. Since 1990, prescriptions for methylphenidate have increased by 500%, while prescriptions for amphetamine for the same purpose have increased 400%. The American Pediatric Association claims Ritalin is over prescribed by 600%.

For well over a decade, many scientists have speculated that ADD drugs are dangerous and can cause serious injury and death. Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist and author of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges explained in response to her study that drugs like Ritalin actually destroy the neural function in children’s brains. As a result, children who have undergone treatment with Ritalin will actually have a much more difficult time processing information and learning new things. This kind of defeats the purpose of getting children to sit still in school while placed in a zombified state.

Brown further reported that Ritalin is responsible for the development of a permanent tic in the face, neck, and head of many of the children who have taken or are taking it. Ironically, Ritalin is responsible for causing far more serious neurological damage than the problems it is alleged to treat. Meta analyses studies over the years have revealed that while drugs like Ritalin visibly place children into a trance like state, these drugs destroy the vulnerable, delicate and developing nervous systems which can and does permanently cripple their ability to function as normal human beings.

The Gardasil Conspiracy

Last year a bill sponsored by Toni G. Atkins, D-San Diego passed into California state law which places every child in danger in California. Atkins bill begs the question of who has the ultimate authority of the welfare of our children. Is it the state or is it the parents? Well, if you live in California, the nanny state purports to have the final say. The Atkins bill makes it legal for a school district or a doctor to medicate or inoculate a child without parental notification.

In an era when Gardasil has resulted in needless tragedy for over 40,000 children who have been vaccinated by well intentioned doctors who are ignorant of the side effects, we are now witnessing states like California mandating the forced inoculation of young girls with Gardasil.

What the medical establishment is not telling you is that thousands of girls are having adverse reactions to the HPV Vaccines, some have even died -at last count, at least 103 lives have been lost to Gardasil. This is a brilliant strategy being invoked by California. Let’s kill the girls, thus preventing them from having sex, thus, preventing STD’s.

You remember MERCK don’t you? They were the creator of the wonder death drug, Vioxx. This is the same Merck, who only after intense pressure from the medical community and the media decided to pull the dangerous drug, Vioxx, from the market after an estimated 140,000 adverse reactions had already occurred. And the pulling of Vioxx occurred only after a safety trial was stopped because there was an undeniable and increased risk for serious cardiovascular dangers such as heart attacks and strokes from using the drug.

Merck has been no less reckless in their administration of Gardasil as they were with Vioxx. First and foremost, Merck and the Food and Drug Administration’s clinical trials have been called into question for blatant fraud committed during the required FDA testing period. Both the control group and the experimental group, in the clinical trials, were given the aluminum adjuvant contained in the Gardasil. Control group and experimental group comparisons are done to ensure public safety from adverse side effects as much as possible. In this case, it would have be standard practice to provide the control group with a saline solution instead of the aluminum adjuvant in order to determine the risk posed by the adjuvant given to the experimental group. In failing to follow these research norms, Merck and the FDA have endangered the public health.

These research protocols violate every known tenant to proper research; it represents an air of unprofessionalism, not to mention criminal fraud, which clearly demonstrates collusion to commit fraud against the general public on behalf of Merck as sponsored by the FDA. In fact, Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit under the Public Records Act in order to obtain the obfuscated side effect results as the FDA tried to cover up their own complicity in this research fraud by refusing to release the relevant documents.

Gardasil is marketed as a vaccine that prevents cancer, but the drug has not been evaluated for the potential to cause cancer or genotoxicity. Gardasil is a prophylactic, preventative vaccine and is of absolutely no value in the treatment of a pre-existing HPV infection. It is neither a cancer vaccine nor a cure; yet, the public has been led to believe that this is the case. The New England Journal of Medicine found that there remains no conclusive proof that Gardasil altered the course of HPV-16 or HPV-18 infection for which the patient was symptomatic prior to the administration of the first dose. In other words, this is fraud in the first degree.

Gardasil is the most costly vaccine ever to be approved by the FDA. However, its long-term effectiveness is not known and several estimates state that Gardasil’s life as a vaccine could be only two to three years. This opens up the distinct possibility that a Gardasil vaccinated child will require several booster shots which will undoubtedly increase the bottom line for Merck, but the risk for side-effects among the vaccinated could increase exponentially with each successive vaccination.

The VAERS reports show that as many as eighteen people have died after receiving Gardasil. The VAERS reports document identifies 38 reports of Guillain-Barre Syndrome among juvenile females who previously received the Gardasil vaccine. Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a catastrophic illness that attacks the nervous system which can and often does result in paralysis. Ironically, Gardasil is being developed against only four types of HPV. However, there is over 100 strains of HPV, 30 of which are transmitted sexually. Just what could have Governor Brown and Atkins been thinking?

Do you not think that this is the first time that this kind of dangerous medical fraud has been and will be visited upon your children for profit and political career advancement? Think again! The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that boys of the age of 11 to 12 years should be vaccinated with the vaccine against HPV with the Gardasil vaccination.

Even my doctors are serving the Big Pharma agenda, as evidenced by the fact that my son’s former pediatrician relentlessly tried to give my then 11 year old son the Gardasil injection. When I presented the good doctor with some of the data contained in this report, he replied “your ideas are not contained within the mainstream of medicine.” Since when is scientific research required to reflect the mainstream of the Big Pharma agenda? The moral of this story is to fire your doctor and find a health care provider who is committed to the welfare of their patients.

Mysterious Deaths in Alabama: Could They Be Related to Monsanto’s Bt Cotton Crops?


 Organic Prepper
by Daisy Luther

A mysterious respiratory illness has claimed the lives of two people in southeast Alabama, and caused five other hospitalizations. The illness has left health officials baffled, who have no idea what this disease is or where it originated.

The mysterious illness has sickened its victims with flu-like symptoms, including a shortness of breath, fever, and coughing. Of the seven people who were hospitalized with the new disease, two have died, Alabama Department of Public Health spokeswoman Mary McIntyre told AP.

While the cause is currently unknown, it’s interesting to note that Southeastern Alabama’s cotton fields are in full bloom this time of year – and that some of these crops are Bt cotton. Bt cotton is a genetically modified cotton that contains a Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) pesticide within the plant.

There is no proof that this is related to the mysterious illnesses in Alabama, however, history shows us that serious illnesses occurred in India wherever Bt cotton was grown.

When Monsanto’s cotton was planted in India, two stories were presented.

The Institute for Responsible Technology reported :

Workers exposed to Bt cotton developed allergies

1. Agricultural laborers in six villages who picked or loaded Bt cotton reported reactions of the skin, eyes and upper respiratory tract.
2. Some laborers required hospitalization.
3. Employees at a cotton gin factory take antihistamines everyday.
4. One doctor treated about 250 cotton laborers

Sheep died after grazing in Bt cotton fields

1. After the cotton harvest in parts of India, sheep herds grazed continuously on Bt cotton plants.
2. Reports from four villages revealed that about 25% of the sheep died within a week.
3. Post mortem studies suggest a toxic reaction.

If you are to believe the Monsanto PR folks, however, their seeds and Indian farms were a match made in heaven. They even created a page on their website to celebrate ten years of partnership and to explain how Bt cotton improved the farmers’ standards of living:

Bollgard has been Indian farmers’ pragati ka saathi (partner in progress), as it has increasingly helped Bt cotton farmers enjoy a higher standard of living. With the combination of higher yields and reduced pesticide costs, India’s cotton farmers have increased their incomes. And with this additional money, they are able to purchase vehicles, provide education for their children, afford better housing for their families and purchase farm equipment.

Additionally, because these farmers have additional income, they are able to put resources back into their villages’ economies. Therefore, villages where farmers are planting Bt cotton have seen improvements in access to services, such as telephone systems, electricity, drinking water, better internet connectivity, banking services, and better access to markets – things many around the world take for granted.

Despite Monsanto’s glowing description of the partnership, cotton farmers in India began to commit suicide at a rate unheard of previously, as the crops failed and they could not pay their debts to Monsanto. Anthony Gucciardi of Natural Society wrote:

According to the most recent figures (provided by the New York University School of Law), 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009 — about one death every 30 minutes. In 2008, the Daily Mail labeled the continual and disturbing suicide spree as ‘The GM (genetically modified) Genocide’. Due to failing harvests and inflated prices that bankrupt the poor farmers, struggling Indian farmers began to kill themselves. Oftentimes, they would commit the act by drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with — a gruesome testament to the extent in which Monsanto has wrecked the lives of independent and traditional farmers.

To further add backing to the tragedy, the rate of Indian farmer suicides massively increased since the introduction of Monsanto’s Bt cotton in 2002. It is no wonder that a large percentage of farmers who take their own lives are cotton farmers, the demographic that is thought to be among the most impacted…

…Many families are now ruined thanks to the mass suicides, and are left to economic ruin and must struggle to fight off starvation. Regardless of PR efforts to debunk claims that the Indian farmer’s were suffering due to Monsanto’s practices, the Indian government last year cancelled the cotton license with Monsanto, citing unfair trading practices.

 ”We have given fair chance to the company and all charges of unfair trade practice have been proved,” says Sudam Adsule, the director of inputs and quality control for Maharashtra, India’s biggest industrial region, in the ENS article. “Hence, under the existing cotton seed act, we have taken action and it can’t be revoked.”

 This year, Monsanto introduced 3 new varieties of “Deltapine” cotton, with 180 growers testing them out. This means that the communities around these growers are unwitting lab rats in Monsanto’s latest experiment. Are the mystery illness victims casualties of this current experiment? If so, proving it will be difficult and because of the Monsanto Protection Act, it is unlikely that, even if proven, any penalty or charges will ever be forthcoming against the company.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Study Finds Vitamin C Kills Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Activist Post

In a striking, unexpected discovery, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in laboratory culture. The finding suggests that vitamin C added to existing TB drugs could shorten TB therapy, and it highlights a new area for drug design. The study was published today in the online journal Nature Communications.

B is caused by infection with the bacterium M. tuberculosis. In 2011, TB sickened some 8.7 million people and took some 1.4 million lives, according to the World Health Organization. Infections that fail to respond to TB drugs are a growing problem: About 650,000 people worldwide now have multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), 9 percent of whom have extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB).TB is especially acute in low and middle income countries, which account for more than 95 percent of TB-related deaths, according to the World Health Organization.



The Einstein discovery arose during research into how TB bacteria become resistant to isoniazid, a potent first-line TB drug. The lead investigator and senior author of the study was William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., professor of microbiology & immunology and of genetics at Einstein. Dr. Jacobs is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Jacobs and his colleagues observed that isoniazid-resistant TB bacteria were deficient in a molecule called mycothiol. “We hypothesized that TB bacteria that can’t make mycothiol might contain more cysteine, an amino acid,” said Dr. Jacobs. “So, we predicted that if we added isoniazid and cysteine to isoniazid-sensitive M. tuberculosis in culture, the bacteria would develop resistance. Instead, we ended up killing off the culture— something totally unexpected.”– William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D.

The Einstein team suspected that cysteine was helping to kill TB bacteria by acting as a “reducing agent” that triggers the production of reactive oxygen species (sometimes called free radicals), which can damage DNA.

“To test this hypothesis, we repeated the experiment using isoniazid and a different reducing agent— vitamin C,” said Dr. Jacobs. “The combination of isoniazid and vitamin C sterilized the M. tuberculosis culture. We were then amazed to discover that vitamin C by itself not only sterilized the drug-susceptible TB, but also sterilized MDR-TB and XDR-TB strains.”

To justify testing vitamin C in a clinical trial, Dr. Jacobs needed to find the molecular mechanism by which vitamin C exerted its lethal effect. More research produced the answer: Vitamin C induced what is known as a Fenton reaction, causing iron to react with other molecules to create reactive oxygen species that kill the TB bacteria.

“We don’t know whether vitamin C will work in humans, but we now have a rational basis for doing a clinical trial,” said Dr. Jacobs. “It also helps that we know vitamin C is inexpensive, widely available and very safe to use. At the very least, this work shows us a new mechanism that we can exploit to attack TB.”

The paper is titled, “Mycobacterium tuberculosis is extraordinarily sensitive to killing by a vitamin C-induced Fenton reaction.” The other contributors are Catherine Vilcheze, Ph.D., Travis Hartman and Brian Weinrick, Ph.D., all at Einstein.

The study was supported by a grant (AI26170) from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Related:  Scary, drug-resistant TB could get beat using plain old vitamin C

New Study Links GMO Food To Leukemia

GreenMedInfo

A new study, yet to receive any media attention, reveals the "leukemogenic" properties of the Bt toxin biopesticides engineered into the vast majority of GMO food crops already within the US food supply.

Last September, the causal link between cancer and genetically modified food was confirmed in a French study, the first independent long-term animal feeding study not commissioned by the biotech corporations themselves. The disturbing details can be found here: New Study Finds GM Corn and Roundup Causes Cancer In Rats

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases indicates that the biopesticides engineered into GM crops known as Bacillus Thuringensis (Bt) or Cry-toxins, may also contribute to blood abnormalities from anemia to hematological malignancies (blood cancers) such as leukemia.

A group of scientists from the Department of Genetics and Morphology, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia, Brasilia/DF, Brazil set out to test the purported human and environmental biosafety of GM crops, looking particularly at the role that the Bt toxin found within virtually all GM food crops plays on non-target or non-insect animal species.

The research was spurred by the Brazilian Collegiate Board of Directors of the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), who advocated in 2005 for evaluations of toxicity and pathogenicity of microbiological control agents such as Bt toxins, given that little is known about their toxicological potential in non-target organisms, including humans.

While Bacillus Thurigensis spore-crystals have been used since the late 1960's in agriculture as a foliar insecticide, it was only after the advent of recombinant DNA biotechnology that these toxin-producing genes (known as delta endotoxins) were first inserted into the plants themselves and released into commercial production in the mid-90's, making their presence in the US food supply and the bodies of exposed populations ubiquitous.

What the new study revealed is that various binary combinations and doses of Bt toxins are capable of targeting mammalian cells, particularly the erythroid (red blood cell) lineage, resulting in red blood cell changes indicative of significant damage, such as anemia. In addition, the study found that Bt toxins suppressed bone marrow proliferation creating abnormal lymphocyte patterns consistent with some types of leukemia.

The researchers also found that one of the prevailing myths about the selective toxicity of Bt to insects, the target species, no longer holds true:

It has been reported that Cry toxins exert their toxicity when activated at alkaline pH of the digestive tract of susceptible larvae, and, because the physiology of the mammalian digestive system does not allow their activation, and no known specific receptors in mammalian intestinal cells have been reported, the toxicity these MCAs to mammals would negligible [8,22,23]. However, our study demonstrated that Bt spore-crystals genetically modified to express individually Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2A induced hematotoxicity, particularly to the erythroid lineage. This finding corroborates literature that demonstrated that alkali-solubilized Bt spore-crystals caused in vitro hemolysis in cell lines of rat, mouse, sheep, horse, and human erythrocytes and suggested that the plasma membrane of susceptible cells (erythrocytes, in this case) may be the primary target for these toxins.

The study also found:

1) That Cry toxins are capable of exerting their adverse effects when suspended in distilled water, not requiring alkalinization via insect physiology to become activated as formerly believed.

2) That a dose of Cry1Ab as low as 27 mg/kg, their lowest tested dose, was capable of inducing hypochromic anemia in mice – the very toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet.

3) Whereas past reports have found that Bt toxins are generally nontoxic and do not bioaccumulate in fatty tissue or persist in the environment, the new study demonstrated that all Cry toxins tested had a more pronounced effect from 72 hours of exposure onwards, indicating the opposite is true.

4) That high-dose Cry toxin doses caused blood changes indicative of bone marrow damage (damage to "hematopoietic stem cell or bone marrow stroma").

The authors noted their results "demonstrate leukemogenic activity for other spore-crystals not yet reported in the literature."

They concluded:

[R]esults showed that the Bt spore-crystals genetically modified to express individually Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2A can cause some hematological risks to vertebrates, increasing their toxic effects with long-term exposure. Taking into account the increased risk of human and animal exposures to significant levels of these toxins, especially through diet, our results suggest that further studies are required to clarify the mechanism involved in the hematotoxicity found in mice, and to establish the toxicological risks to non-target organisms, especially mammals, before concluding that these microbiological control agents are safe for mammals.

Did you get that? Their conclusion is that it is premature to consider GM toxins to be safe in mammals. Billions have already been exposed to Bt toxins, in combination with glyphosate-based herbicide formulations such as Roundup, and yet, most biotech research scientists and industry regulators still claim they are unequivocally safe. This has much to do with the well-known relationship that biotech corporations like Monsanto have with so-called 'check book' science firms who are basically paid to obfuscate adverse health outcomes of their products, such as the GMO-Cancer link. [see: Monsanto-Funded Science Denies Emerging Roundup Cancer Link]

Consider also that the question of combined toxicity of Cry toxins and glyphosate-based residues within plants have not been sufficiently explored, and that glyphosate exposure has already been linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma and hairy cell leukemia in the biomedical literature.

The reality is that we no longer have time to wait around for additional research to accumulate on the adverse health effects of GMOs, especially considering the biotech industry has far more capital to infuse into their own faux research on the topic.

Some, in fact, argue that we should not be waiting around for the corrupt legislative process to compel manufacturers to label GMOs, rather, we should be fighting to BAN THEM NOW, advocating for the precautionary principle before its too late.

In the meantime, you can join the growing movement to March Against Monsanto, occurring world wide on May 25th, as a way of expressing your desire for real change, as well as vote with your forks, the only immediately effective tool we have against biological and environmental gene-ocide articulated by the dominant GMO-based food system.

YOU ARE CRAZY: New Psychiatric Guidelines Target Hoarding, Child Temper Tantrums, and a Host of Other “Illnesses”

Investment Watch

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States.

In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level.

You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today, but under the new guidelines experts say half of us will be diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in the future.

The odds will probably be greater than 50 percent, according to the new manual, that you’ll have a mental disorder in your lifetime.

… The increasing number of disorders comes about because some “problems” that were not previously considered to be mental illness were reclassified as such by their inclusion in the DSM—and it is the DSM that functionally defines mental illness in the United States.

You see, in the DSM-5 the definitions for mental illness have been expanded to include a whole host of new symptoms and conditions.

For example, under the new guidelines if your 6 to 18 year-old child throws a temper tantrum from time to time or has a mood swing, a psychiatrist could diagnose the condition as a “Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder” requiring professional treatment. Keep in mind that in psychiatry “professional treatment” almost always means prescription drugs.

Are you over the age of 55 and have “senior moments” like forgetting where you put your keys? If so, then in all likelihood you have a neurocognitive disorder.

Do you stockpile food, supplies or other items in anticipation of a disaster? If so, you may have what’s called an obsessive compulsive hoarding disorder.

“The reality shows have raised awareness, but they tend to sensationalize the patients, and they rarely talk about treatment.”

“The big change,” Dr. Saxena said, “will be an official recognition of hoarding as an important neuropsychic disorder that will increase screening, increase detection and diagnosis, and refer patients in for treatment.”

While the new hoarding guidelines don’t specifically target “preparedness,” the fact is that some ‘professionals’ have already suggested that if you have any level of anxiety about the possibility of a major catastrophe, or your motivation for preparing for unforeseen events includes a distrust of the government, then you’ve got psychological problems.

Now, with the DSM-5, they can officially diagnose you as crazy.

Dr. Allen Frances, the author of Saving Normal, says that the new requirements will, ”turn everyday anxiety, eccentricity, forgetting and bad eating habits into mental disorders.”

The changes being introduced by the DSM-5 are nothing short of a sweeping overhaul of our mental health care system, and they will have effects that many experts can’t even fathom. But those behind the DSM, who work very closely with government experts, know exactly what they’re doing.

Let’s connect the dots a little bit to get an idea of how this is going to have a direct impact on your life in the very near future.

Under the new regulations set forth by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, certain groups of Americans like school children, seniors, those on government health plans, active-duty military personnel, and veterans will be required to submit to mental health screenings.

Page 1137 of the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides grants for the operation of school-based health centers required to include “mental health and substance abuse disorder assessments” for children and adolescents.

On page 1191 is found a section on Mental Health Screening that refers to a program called “Healthy Aging, Living Well”. Persons ages 55-64 are being targeted for screening activities that can include “mental health/behavioral health and substance use disorders.”

Obamacare requires mental health services for many other groups.

These include Medicaid recipients, addicts, mothers with postpartum depression, the elderly, and soldiers. There’s even has a section called “Mental Health in Small Businesses” which awards grants to small businesses willing to provide workplace wellness programs that encourage “healthy lifestyles, healthy eating, increased physical activity and improved mental health.”

Are you starting to see where this is going?

You’ll be forced by your child’s school, by the government, and even your private employer to be involuntarily screened. And the psychiatrists who’ll be performing the diagnoses will be utilizing the criteria outlined in the DSM-5.

According to the afforementioned statistics, there’s a 50% chance that those being screened will be found to have some type of mental health condition.

But that’s just the beginning.

As we know, once diagnosed, failure to take the treatment (e.g. medication) prescribed could then be deemed unlawful behavior, especially in the case of children.

Not possible in America? Think again:

Earlier this year, administrators from the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district called Albany County Child Protective Services, alleging child abuse when the Carrolls said they wanted to take Kyle off the drug.

As a result, the Carrolls are now on a statewide list of alleged child abusers, and they have been thrust into an Orwellian family court battle to clear their name and to ensure their child isn’t removed from their home. “It’s beyond the point of whether he should be on it. Now it’s the point of them telling us what we’re going to do,” said Michael Carroll. “They’re telling me how to raise my child.”

… “The schools are now using child protective services to enforce their own desires and their own policies,” said David Lansner, a New York City lawyer who has seen cases similar to the Carrolls’. “The parents’ authority is being undermined when people have to do what some public official wants,” Lansner added. “This thing is so scary.”

It’s already happening, and with nearly 4 million children every year being (mis)diagnosed with ADHD, we can expect the numbers to rise significantly under the new DSM guidelines.

It’s important to understand, however, that they’re not just targeting our children. They’re coming after all of us.

The DSM-5, coupled with Obama Care legislation, will allow the government unprecedented control over lives.

One such example is the targeting of America’s gun owners. Legislation is in the works in many states, as well as the U.S. Congress, that would require mental health screenings for firearms ownership. Should these bills pass, then about half of America’s gun owners would immediately lose their right to bear arms for any manner of “disorders” that could include stress, anxiety, depressed mood or even poor eating habits!

And while gun control proponents would applaud the victory, what they fail to understand is that by green-lighting such a government intrusion, they are setting themselves up for future legislation that may restrict their own rights for activities that may include maintaining employment or caring for their children.

Once a diagnoses is made the government will then have the ability to enforce it at the barrel of a gun.

If your child is diagnosed with ADHD or separation anxiety disorder, and you refuse to feed them their prescription cocktail, then the government will step in and take your children under the guise of protecting them… from you!

Likewise, you may one day be forced to be screened by your employer and found to be mentally ill (remember, 50/50 shot!). If you refuse the professional treatment that’s recommended, you could lose your job as a result. And because the Department of Homeland Security has been busy creating a Domestic No-Work List all prospective employers will know of your condition and your refusal to seek professional treatment.

The possibilities, now that the door has been opened, are endless.

Related:  Mental Disorders: The Facts Behind the Marketing Campaign
Medicine: Pills for Mental Illness?

GMO Crop Sabotage on the Rise: French citizens destroy trial vineyard

Live Leak

Early Sunday morning, French police stood helpless as sixty people, locked inside an open-air field of genetically modified grapevines, uprooted all the plants. In Spain last month, dozens of people destroyed two GMO fields. On the millennial cusp, Indian farmers burned Bt cotton in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Ignored by multinational corporations and corrupt public policy makers, citizens act to protect the food supply and the planet.

The French vineyard is the same field attacked last year when the plants were only cut. But the security features installed after that incident kept authorities at bay while the group accomplished its mission yesterday.

Speaking for the group, Olivier Florent told Le Figero that they condemned the use of public funds for open-field testing of GMOs “that we do not want.”

Pitching tents in the rain near France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) site in Colmar the night before, the group waited until 5 AM before converging on the site and locking the gates behind them. They uprooted all 70 plants, then submitted to arrest.

This is the second attack on GMO crops to make international news this year. In July dozens of people destroyed two experimental corn crops in Spain. In an anonymous press release, they wrote, “This kind of direct action is the best way to respond to the fait accompli policy through which the Generalitat, the State and the biotech multinationals have been unilaterally imposing genetically modified organisms.”

In the late 1990s, Indian farmers burnt Bt cotton fields in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Monsanto did not disclose to farmers that the GM seeds were experimental. “Despite the heavy use of chemical fertiliser, traces of which still can be observed in the field, the Bt plants grew miserably, less than half the size of the traditional cotton plants in the adjacent fields.”


After the Haiti earthquake this year, Monsanto offered 475 tons of hybrid corn and terminator vegetable seeds in partnership with USAID. In June, 10,000 Haitian farmers marched in protest of the “poison gift” which produces no viable seeds for future plantings and requires heavy chemical inputs. Haitian farm leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste observed that the biotech plan makes farmers dependent on multinational corporations.

In the US, GMOs were secretly foisted on the public in the mid-1990s, and only now is the US Supreme Court addressing the scourge. In June, the high court upheld partial deregulation of GM alfalfa, which permits limited planting while the USDA prepares an Environmental Impact Statement. Natural and organic alfalfa supply is threatened by the very real potential of GM contamination. This would destroy the organic meat and dairy industry.

Last Friday, a federal court took a tougher position on GM sugar beets. Judge Jeffrey S. White revoked USDA approval of the GM beet, while allowing for its planting this year only.

Also this month, a British farmer exposed that milk and meat from cloned animals had secretly entered the food supply.

Public opposition to GM crops has grown in recent years as more evidence surfaces that DNA-altered crops:

Require massive chemical inputs which destroy local biodiversity and poison the water tables; cross-pollinate with natural and weedy crops; create superweeds; and have been shown to cause organ damage, sterility, and diabetes and obesity in mammals. Meanwhile, President Obama has stacked his Administration with biotech insiders going so far as to appoint Islam Siddiqui as Agriculture Trade Negotiator. Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and vice president of CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws.

The US is pushing hard at the world to accept GM foods. Recently, the American Farm Bureau Federation called for stronger sanctions against the European Union for its GM crop ban.

But as governments and trade agreements circumvent the will of the people, some take matters into their own hands. The rise in GMO crop destruction is a clear indication that the world’s people reject chemical and genetic pollution of the food supply and the environment.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Peak Pollination: Global Collapse of Food Supplies Approaches As 30% of Bee Colonies Wiped Out In the Last Year

Investment Watch
by Mac Slavo

With seven billion people on the planet energy and food resources are already highly strained, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of the world’s population lives on just scraps a day.

It wouldn’t take much to send us over a cliff. The last several years have not only reduced food reserves significantly because of widespread droughts, but have led to price inflation in essential grains necessary to feed ourselves as well as the livestock on which millions of Americans depend.

The reality is that we’re just one major calamity away from a catastrophic impact on our ability to feed the people of earth.

And, according to recent data published by the Bee Informed Partnership, that calamity could come in the form of a totally unexpected event: Peak Pollination.

According to the latest survey results, an astounding 31.3 percent, or roughly one-third, of all managed bee colonies in the U.S. were wiped out during the most recent 2012/2013 winter season, a rate that represents a 42 percent increase compared to the number of colonies lost during the previous 2011/2012 winter season.

U.S. beekeepers on average lost more than 45 percent of their colonies during the 2012/2013 winter season, a 78.2 percent jump in losses over the previous season.

And overall, more than 70 percent of respondents, most of whom were backyard beekeepers, experienced losses beyond the 15 percent “acceptable” threshold, illustrating a monumental problem not only for bee survival but also for the American food supply.

…many are worried that this year-after-year compounded increase will very soon make it impossible for grow enough food. “We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we don’t have enough bees in this country to meet pollination demands,” says Dennis vanEngelstorp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland who led the survey. “If we want to grow fruits and nuts and berries, this is important.

One in every three bites [of food consumed in the U.S.] is directly or indirectly pollinated by bees.
Via: Natural News

The bee population has been diminishing at an astounding 30% per year over the last decade, a decline that is often overlooked or ignored by central planners.

Bees are absolutely essential to the cycle of life. In the United States they pollinate about 90% of flowering crops, including those used as feed for cattle.

Take away the bees and the majority of the world’s population will be dead within a year because there will be no way to pollinate the billions of pounds of fruits, vegetables and other plants required to keep all of us alive.

The most frightening thing about the destruction of bee colonies is that we have absolutely no idea what is causing it. It could be contaminants in the air such as industrial pollutants or radiation. Some have surmised that it’s electro-magnetic and radio signals from millions of internet-wired devices. Or, perhaps it’s the very plants the bees are pollinating, most of which are now genetically modified to serve corporate business interests.

Whatever the cause, we have no solution, which means we can expect this trend to continue.

Nature has struck a very delicate balance on our planet. From the thermo-halene circulation of our oceans to the oxygen and carbon dioxide in our air, even tiny changes make for significant global impacts.

At this pace it is only a matter of time before the population of bees on our planet falls below the threshold necessary to produce enough food required to meet global demand.

Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the largest beekeeping business in the country, lost 28,000 of its 70,000 hives. That’s about a billion bees gone missing. “It’s off the charts,” said Bret Adee. “It’s not a sustainable thing, what’s happening now.” (link)

How long before we go critical is anybody’s guess, but peak pollination is coming unless we can reverse the trend (something that doesn’t look very promising).

At current rates about half of the world’s bee population is being destroyed every two years.

These are massive numbers.

With bees responsible for pollinating about 35% of the food produced for global consumption, it’s easy to see how serious of a crisis we’ll face if Colony Collapse Disorder can’t be stopped.

Couple this with all of our other problems, both natural and man-made, and things could go very badly, very quickly.