`Suspect Rat' Found in US Vegetable Product

This story totally reminds me of the time I was living in Korea and the Korean FDA found e. coli in some meat imported from the U.S. The U.S., of course, REFUSED to believe some dumb Koreans with their obviously third worldy, inaccurate labs.

So the US FDA sent a whole team over to Korea to test the suspected meat, and Oops! the Magic 8-ball says....E. Coli. No apology or anything, just a quiet retreat.

Shortly thereafter, however, newly suspicious of American products, the news had one of those consumer stories where they showed in real time that insects and things would actually croak if you put them in a bag of American flour. I think it's partly a function of our pesticide overuse and partly a function of the U.S. dumping gross goods (banned pesticides and other fun chemicals, etc.) on other countries.

After that I avoided "Made in USA" the way we currently avoid "Made in China."

I'm sure the USFDA is going to say, "Well, that rat was organic, you should be happy!"

From the Korea Times English edition:

By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said that it is investigating whether a substance found in a vinyl bag of a frozen vegetable product manufactured by Columbia Foods of the United States was a small rat.

The investigation follows a report by a consumer that a foreign body was found in a packet of ``Organic Mixed Vegetable,'' bought at a local discount chain store. The consumer filed a complaint with the store, which later reported the case to the KFDA.

The authority said it has secured the product and the substance, which looks like a small rat and is 4 centimeters long.

The latest finding of a foreign substance came days after the nation's largest snack maker, Nongshim, made a public apology for one of its best-selling items containing the head of a small rodent. The company shut down the snack production line and supermarkets are already removing them from their shelves.

---------------------------------------------

At least, I'm sure the rat was organic. ;)

REVIEW: BC Kelp's Bath Bags

Ever wonder why you feel better by the seashore? First there's the negative ion generated in the air. Then there's also the rich set of minerals you are getting bathed in; even if you don't go swimming, they are in the air.

We eat seaweed at home for taste and for its detoxification properties. Now you can have transdermal seaweed with this bags from BC Kelp, a small, family owned company that cleanly and sustainably harvests wild weed.

When you use this in the bath, a kind of slimy goo comes out. This kind of goo has traditionally been used as shampoo not only in Asia but off the coast of Ireland where some kind of seaweed (hm, Irish moss?) grows in abundance. You can use this as kind of a scrubby cloth and don't worry if the goo doesn't fully come out of your hair. You'll be amazed at how clean you feel and how detoxified. Don't forget to compost--seaweed adds lots of minerals to the garden.

I'm going to buy a bunch more.

A Short Scary History of Pharma in our lives

This site is promisingly called Naked Authors. You HAVE to read this history of the unholy alliance between the drug companies and our government...and, my favorite, it ends in vaccines.

Note also how the super-secret "Simpsonwood" meeting** of the CDC was held in some remote Christian retreat thingie? Our tax dollars at work!

**that was the emergency meeting of the CDC to discuss the adverse events database finding that seemed to point unequivocably to the vaccine-autism link. Well, unequivocally enough that one of the participants ran out of there to call his daughter-in-law, who'd just had a baby, to tell her NOT to vaccinate. Hm....

Read this! At the very least, the ads are a (major) trip down memory lane.

http://www.nakedauthors.com/2008/03/shot-in-dark.html

Link Between Antidepressants and Diabetes

Sad to say, but I know more people on antidepressants than not. I know they are sometimes medically necessary--I've had friends who've felt they've needed to be on them while PREGNANT, that's pretty serious. But if you're just feeling a little blue, besides the very real risk of causing suicidal ideation, there's also a risk of diabetes (plus all the other side effects
we don't know about yet PLUS all the stuff going into the water).

From newswise:

Newswise — While analyzing data from Saskatchewan health databases, Lauren Brown, researcher with the U of A’s School of Public Health, found people with a history of depression had a 30 per cent increased risk of type 2 Diabetes.

Brown then studied the medical history of 2,400 people who were diagnosed with depression and were taking antidepressants to determine whether there was a clear correlation between that disease and type 2 Diabetes.

Brown divided the group into four categories: those who took antidepressants that were considered older therapies, patients who were using newer treatments, those using a combination of both an old and new treatments and people who were switching medications.

What she found was the risk of diabetes almost doubled for the patients who were using two types of therapies at the same time, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Brown says people are usually prescribed multiple medications “if they have severe depression or if they are having a problem finding the right therapy.”

Brown believes these results, and results of previous studies demonstrating an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in people with depression, emphasize the need for regular screening for type 2 diabetes in people with depression, particularly those taking more than one antidepressant. She also encourages diabetes and depression organizations to educate their members about this link.

This study was recently published in Diabetes Research & Clinical Practice.

A World Without Men

From the Whole Life Times:

Gender-bending industrial chemicals are skewing the birth ratio in favor of baby girls. Could a world without men be a few short generations away?

By Elizabeth Barker

Last summer a team of Scandinavian scientists announced that twice as many girls as boys are being born in the Arctic, a region said to serve as a “pollution sink” for the rest of the planet. Earlier in the year a report from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences determined that the ratio of male-to-female births has substantially dropped in the United States and Japan, yielding about 250,000 fewer boys than would have been born had the sex ratio circa 1970 endured. In both cases, researchers pegged environmental exposures as a probable factor in the shortage of boy births.

As more and more research reveals a decline in the number of bouncing baby boys born each year, scientists are zeroing in on a class of synthetic chemicals known as endocrine disruptors. Including plastic ingredients like phthalates and bisphenol-A, these commonplace compounds are known to mimic female hormones and thwart the production of testosterone, explains Shanna Swan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. So far, most studies have focused on how endocrine-disrupting chemicals can affect the reproductive systems of animals. But in 2005 the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published Swan’s findings that — among a group of 85 mother-and-son pairs — boys whose moms had high levels of phthalates were more likely to show signs of “demasculinization” (such as a shorter distance between the anus and the genitals and incompletely descended testicles). What’s more, that recent report from the Arctic detected high levels of hormone-mimicking pollutants in the blood of pregnant women throughout Inuit villages with an excess of female births....

Like about 95 percent of all synthetic chemicals used in the United States, most endocrine disruptors were never tested for their impact on human health — or on the environment — before turning up in our baby bottles, plastic wrap and perfume. “What we need in this country is a government that will protect us from all these dangerous chemicals, but instead there’s no one minding the store,” says Brody. Stahlhut likens the current system to the pre-FDA, “wild wild west” days of the pharmaceutical industry, when there was little to no regulation of drugs and therapeutic products. “I’d like for us to do better than that,” he laments. “But if you look at any health hazards we’ve already learned about — whether it’s lead or smoking — there’s always been exposure for decades and decades before someone says, ‘Oh, look, there’s a problem here.’”

read more here.

Non-Stick Cookware Continues to Prove Its Toxicity

I know a person who was cooking with teflon and had their very expensive parrot type birds keel over and DIE. Talk about canary in a coal mine. We got rid of all our nonstick stuff a LONG time ago.

And yes, our cooking is very sticky, but more on that later. In case you need to know more:
------------------------------------------------------

More evidence has emerged regarding the dangers of Perflurooctanoic Acid (PFOA), which is used in the production of non-stick cookware and stain-resistant snack food packaging. PFOA is currently found in the bloodstream of 95 percent of American men, women, and children.

Now, a study has shown a correlation between PFOA and low birth weight in newborns. One of the head researchers in the independent study, Dr. Lynn Goldman, said that, “It appears that there is a relation between a higher level of exposure and lower birth weight, as well as the circumference of the head.”

Another recent study showed that PFOA caused an overreaction to allergens in mice.

PFOA has already been implicated in increased instances of cancer in the pancreas, liver, testicles, and mammary glands, as well as miscarriages, thyroid problems, weakened immune systems, and low organ weights.

A growing community of scientists believe the largest concentration of PFOA comes from the telomers used to make the stain and grease repellent coatings for fast food containers, apparel, and carpeting.

Sources:

• Organic Consumers Association February 14, 2008

--------------------------------

Another article: LEAD in Rival crockpots

Marriage Good for Health

Please note, this is HAPPILY married couples. Poor Silda Wall Spitzer, her blood pressure probably hasn't improved with the latest events.

From Newswise:

Newswise — New research shows that happily married adults have lower blood pressure than singles with supportive social networks, suggesting marriage may literally be a matter of the heart.

Brigham Young University professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad found that men and women in happy marriages scored four points lower on 24-hour blood pressure than single adults. Having a network of supportive friends did not translate into improved blood pressure for singles or unhappily marrieds, which surprised Holt-Lunstad and her two student collaborators.

“There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage,” said Holt-Lunstad, whose findings will be published March 20 in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. “It’s not just being married that benefits health - what’s really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage.”

Hidden Trans Fats Boost Women's Infertility Risk by 70 Percent

This is one of the big items I emphasized in my Natural Health article on fertility. If you want to make sure your diet is transfat-free, the best way is to eat whole, fresh, unprocessed foods. The FDA leaves a loophole for icky additives, in that if it's less than xx percent (it keeps changing--was 1% last time I checked) manufacturers don't have to list it, and believe me, they will use that to their advantage. Caveat emptor!

Here's a nice capsule from Natural News:

Study: Hidden Trans Fats Boost Women's Infertility Risk by 70 Percent

by David Guiterrez

(NaturalNews) Already known to increase the risk of heart disease, trans fats may also increase a woman's risk of fertility problems by 70 percent or more, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Trans fats, which have no nutritional value, are regularly added to thousands of processed foods in order to extend their shelf life. Studies have previously shown they increase the body's ratio of "bad" (LDL) to "good" (HDL) cholesterol, thus raising the risk of heart disease.

"There is already an overwhelming scientific case for banning trans fats," said Oliver Tickell of the anti-trans-fat group TFX, "and this new evidence gives it considerable new weight and urgency."

Researchers found that women who received 2 percent of their daily calories from trans fats -- as opposed to carbohydrates or other unsaturated fats -- were 70 to 100 percent more likely to suffer infertility due to lack of ovulation. For someone with a 2,000 calorie diet, this level of intake could be achieved by consuming just 4 grams of trans fats a day, an amount that could be found in a single doughnut or portion of french fries.

"It's really a small amount of fats that we observed having a significant effect on infertility," said lead researcher Dr. Jorge Chavarro.

While U.S. law requires that the trans fat content of foods be labeled, even careful consumers might still find themselves unknowingly eating 4 grams or more a day. By law, foods containing less than half a gram of trans fats per serving may be labeled as trans fat free.

"Food companies are knowingly hiding trans fats in processed foods by using small serving sizes combined with the 0.5 grams ... loophole," said Mike Adams, author of "Poison In the Food: Hydrogenated Oils."

"The labels claim the foods are trans fat free, but they may still contain considerable levels of the dangerous ingredient." He notes that besides looking at the nutrition facts labels, consumers should always check the ingredients list for "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" oils, and avoid products that contain either one.

Still Confused about Vaccines?

If you are trying to digest all the conflicting information coming at you about vaccines--for yourself or your loves ones--this blog has all you need to know. Dan Olmsted if the reporter who wrote the Age of Autism series for the UPI, where, for example, he looked all over the place (and still hasn't been able to find) an autistic Amish child ( = they don't vaccinate).

I've contributed a piece on what we think happened to our son. You can have the added bonus of learning new vocabulary words: "The Word of the Day Is..."

Click here: www.AgeofAutism.com

British Medical Journal Asks Tough Questions--and makes fun of Rumsfeld

Following last week’s study suggesting that new generation antidepressants aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, an EXTREMELY insightful report in this week’s British Medical Journal asks do we really know the truth about antidepressants? Or statins? Or any other drug on the market? I myself fret when I see my friends popping pills like...well...Heath Ledger!

Too long for the blog, but I know you readers have good attention spans, so here's for your home viewing. The jab at Rumsfeld is a definite bonus:

Click here to view full paper: http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/march/feat532.pdf

Click here to view editorial (p2-3 of pdf): http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/march/edit0803.pdf

Beware Lemon Slice in your Restaurant Drinks!

A slice of lemon in your drug-filled water can be very refreshing, and there's even good stuff in the rind....of your organic washed lemons, that is. If you drop you lemon in water in a restaurant, it might not be the same thing. Check out this video:

Beware Lemon Slice in your Drinks!

Government Concedes Vaccine Damage in "Autism" Case

BONUS POST

Wow am I getting a lot of emails on this. Well, what can I say? Finally, while portraying the "wacko parents" vs. science we have a Johns Hopkins neurologist and his NURSE-LAWYER wife arguing vaccine damage. There you go.

Check out David Kirby's excellent blog on Huffpost:

Posted March 7, 2008 | 01:33 PM (EST)

A big autism bomb went off yesterday, about how US medical personnel
had determined that vaccines had aggravated a little girl's
mitochondrial disorder, resulting in autism. Now, the American
people are left to interpret what it all means.

Here is a handy guide. You can:
A) Blindly trust what government officials are saying (or not saying)
or
B) Invest 30 minutes in the future of your nation's young people

(do it now, over a nice, warm latte!) and go Google for yourself.

Please visit Huffington Post to read the rest of Mr. Kirby's article and share your comments.

---------------------------------

This mitochondrial "disorder" is gussied up language to make you think little old you can't possibly understand the hard and manly science behind this. Mercury fucks up the kreb's cycle, this is well known.

More on OTHER kiddies being compensated quietly from the government slush fund, from Dan Olmsted, UPI report's excellent blog, age of autism.

AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water

Actually, we should be worried about what Big Pharma's done to the water here--eeeek! I guess the good news is, for the elderly who can't afford their prescription meds, they can just drink more water (doesn't matter, tap, bottled, well, it's everywhere) and get a little bit o' everything, including antidepressants, antiseizure meds, ibuprophen, sleep meds, various hormones...all in one! (Hm, some one should bottle it and SELL it!).

p.s. they also think chlorine might make the drugs more POISONOUS, too.

From the investigative team at the AP:
----------------

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

read more here.

AP: "Cheney" Water makes US Troops Sick in Iraq

Again, we must trust our government will always have our best interests at heart. Support our troops!! USA #1, etc!

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

read more here.

Green Fertility's Article on Guess-what in NATURAL HEALTH

Not sure why the magazine cover looks weirdly green, I have an article on natural ways you can enhance your fertility--including how to decode the new diet info from the Nurse's Health Study (that was the one that said you can increase your fertility by eating ice cream--kind of a stretch there).

It's a cover story: Increase Fertility Naturally. Enjoy! Send me comments and your own stories if you want them considered to be featured on the blog.

And here's the link to Natural Health magazine.

Lead in Rival Crockpots

Gahhhhhhh! Crockpots are supposed to be energy saving devices. Did you know they also might have lead? We ditched ours last year because of the rumor (who's paranoid NOW?). From KUTV in Salt Lake City, they actually did the tests, and the results aren't pretty.
------------------------------------------------------
SALT LAKE CITY - It's an investigation that started right here in Utah and sparked a fire among lawmakers in our nation's capital.
Bill Gephardt found dangerous lead in the plates and bowls you might eat off every day. And that investigation sparked a flood of calls to the "Get Gephardt" tipline when people realized there could be danger lurking elsewhere in their kitchens.

Now, Gephardt found that a slow cooker, something that heats food for many hours, might also contain lead. Is it possible that it's actually cooking the lead right into our food?

Stacia Stuart is raising three young daughters in her Weber County home. She is one of many mothers shocked by what I found last fall. Lead in the paint and glaze on dinnerware leaching into food.

“I saw your story... I knew I wanted to try my dinnerware,” she said. “I thought… the crock pot!"

Stacia wondered about her paint-covered cooking appliance that she has regularly used for years.

"I use it twice a week,” she said.

Stacia took her plates and "crock pot" down to the Weber County fairgrounds during a free lead test day and lead was found; a lot of lead.

“The crock pot I have, the rival crock pot [was] full of lead," she said.

I took Stacia's crock pot, along with several new and used slow cookers, to be tested by Jim Kenyon at "Kenyon Consulting." He used an XRF gun -- or "x-ray fluorescent" device -- to peer into the surface of the cookers to determine if they have lead.

Of the small sampling of slow cookers tested for me, 20 percent tested with a measurable amount of lead. But is lead actually leaching out of the cookers that contain lead?

I took Stacia's crock pot cooker to DataChem labs in Salt Lake City to find out. This is the same place where we tested plates I purchased from stores last fall and discovered lead was actually leaching into food.

Not only that, but when ceramic ware was heated to just 80-degrees, it released nearly 10-times the amount of lead as a plate at room temperature. Slow cookers heat up to more than 250-degrees.
read more here.

Official: CDC late on FEMA trailer issue

Someone made a comment recently that how could it be that something the government makes you do (ie.., vaccines) could possibly not be checked out and deemed to be totally safe and therefore parents who say it's not are wacko?


Well, I bring you the formaldehyde-y FEMA trailers. Don't forget a man DIED while complaining about the fumes (from the AP:)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have reacted sooner to concerns about hazardous fumes in government-issued trailers housing thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims, a CDC official told a congressional panel Tuesday.

"In retrospect, we did not engage the formaldehyde issue as aggressively and as early as we should have," Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC's National Center For Environmental Health, told a Senate subcommittee on disaster recovery. The committee met in Washington.

The CDC announced last month that tests on hundreds of occupied Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers and mobile homes found formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than what people are exposed to in most modern homes. The results prompted FEMA to step up efforts to move roughly 35,000 families still living in the trailers after the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita....

"FEMA takes very seriously our responsibility to provide for the safety and security of disaster victims," he said. "Our primary focus is to help those households relocate from temporary housing to more permanent solutions as quickly as possible."

In mid-2006, FEMA enlisted the CDC's help in analyzing the results of air-quality tests on unoccupied trailers. But the CDC didn't start testing the air quality in occupied FEMA trailers — or study the possible health effects of long-term formaldehyde exposure — until late last year.

Frumkin said the safety of trailers should have been a top priority soon after the hurricanes hit, but that CDC scientists were "extremely engaged" in other environmental health issues.

"Formaldehyde in trailers didn't rise to the top of our priority list at that time, and if I could roll the tape back, I would change that," he said.

"This is a little too late," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told Deputy FEMA Administrator Harvey Johnson Jr. during Tuesday's hearing.

read more here.

Vaccine Companies Investigated for Manslaughter

With the mandatory "shoot first" roulette of vaccines, people who are injured have very little recourse. The U.S. is not the only place where vaccines are entering the legal arena, this is from the Reuters New Service:

-------------------------------------------------------
Vaccine Companies Investigated for Manslaughter

A formal investigation has been launched by French authorities against two managers from drug companies GlaxoSmithKline an

d Sanofi Pasteur. A second investigation for manslaughter has also been opened against Sanofi Pasteur MSD.

The investigations are in response to allegations that the companies failed to fully disclose side effects from an anti-hepatitis B drug used between 1994 and 1998.

During this time, close to two-thirds of the French population, and almost all newborn babies, received a hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccination campaign was halted after concerns rose over the shot’s side effects.

Thirty plaintiffs, including the families of five people who died after the vaccination, have launched a civil action in the case against the drug companies.

Sources:

• Reuters February 1, 2008