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31/10/2007

UV light- a breakthrough in cancer

Cancer breakthrough as ultraviolet light is used to destroy tumours

By DANIEL MARTIN - More by this author »
Last updated at 22:00pm on 29th October 2007
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1774


Beams of ultraviolet light could be used to destroy tumours following a breakthrough by British scientists.

They have developed light-activated "magic bullets" which could give hope to millions of cancer victims by allowing surgeons to target tumours much more effectively.

The special molecules are injected into the bloodstream and then "switched on" by shining ultraviolet light on the part of the body where they are needed.

It means drugs can be targeted on tumours rather than being wasted throughout the body as is usual with cancer drugs - running the risk of damaging healthy organs.

Because these special molecules only work when bathed in light, doctors would be able to use ultraviolet rays to ensure that only the drugs embedded near the tumour are switched on.

Scientists from Newcastle University hope the procedure could be used to make existing drugs such as Herceptin much more effective.

Lead researcher Professor Colin Self said last night: "I would describe this development as the equivalent of ultra-specific magic bullets."

The new technique could be used for tumours close to the skin, such as breast cancer, and for any cancers accessible by a light probe.

These include those of the digestive system, such as stomach and bowel cancer, and those of the genito-urinary system, such as ovarian cancer.

The treatment makes use of chemicals called antibodies, which are known to have great potential as anti-cancer treatments. But getting them to target specific parts of the body is difficult.

Six volunteers fell gravely ill at London's Northwick Park Hospital last year because the antibodies they were testing affected their entire body, driving their immune systems into overload.

To get over this problem, the Newcastle team cloaked antibodies in an organic oil which renders them inactive until illuminated by ultra-violet rays.

By using a probe to shine a light on the tumour, the antibodies at the right place in the body can be brought to life. Any antibodies in the rest of the body will remain dormant, meaning side effects can be minimised.

The activated antibodies then cause immune cells in the blood called T-cells to attack the cancer.

Professor Self said: "This could mean that a patient coming in for treatment of bladder cancer would receive an injection of the cloaked antibodies.

She would sit in the waiting room for an hour and then come come back in for treatment by light.

"Just a few minutes of the light therapy directed at the region of the tumour would activate the T-cells causing her body's own immune cells to attack the tumour."

Details of the work are contained in two papers published online in the journal ChemMedChem.

So far the technique has only been tested on animals, but clinical trials on humans could begin as early as next year.

However, it would take at least a decade of rigorous testing before light can be used to kill tumours in hospital.

Josephine Querido, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer, said: "Developing treatments that attack cancer cells but leave healthy tissue unharmed is the holy grail of cancer research.

"Although at a very early stage, this new approach has potential, and we await the outcome of further research with interest."

To be like... is not the to be the same...

Folic acid fortification warning

Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 12:05 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7069077.stm


Fortifying flour with folic acid to cut birth defects may lead to a range of health problems, warn scientists.

The move was approved earlier this year by the Food Standards Agency as a way to reduce defects such as spina bifida.

However, an Institute of Food Research team has shown the liver could easily become saturated by folic acid.

Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition, they warn this could lead to unmetabolised folic acid entering the blood, which could damage health.

The latest study follows a letter to the Food Standards Agency from Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer of England, requesting further expert consideration of two recent studies linking folic acid to bowel cancer before the government gives the final go-ahead for mandatory fortification.

But the Food Standards Agency said fortification was safe.

Dramatic results

Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin found in a wide variety of foods including liver and green leafy vegetables.

But while folates are broken down in the gut, the latest research shows that folic acid is metabolised in the liver.

The researchers warn that the liver is an easily saturated system, and mandatory fortification could lead to significant unmetabolised folic acid entering the blood.

Researcher Dr Sian Astley said fortifying flour would undoubtedly reduce the number of neural tube defects among babies.

Mandatory fortification has already been introduced in the US, Canada and Chile, where it cut defect rates by up to half.

But she said: "With doses of half the amount being proposed for fortification in the UK, the liver becomes saturated and unmetabolised folic acid floats around the blood stream.

"This can cause problems for people being treated for leukaemia and arthritis, women being treated for ectopic pregnancies, men with a family history of bowel cancer, people with blocked arteries being treated with a stent and elderly people with poor vitamin B status.

"For women undergoing in-vitro fertilisation, it can also increase the likelihood of conceiving multiple embryos, with all the associated risks for the mother and babies."

Dr Astley warned it could take 20 years for any potential harmful effects of unmetabolised folic acid to become apparent.

Harmful effects

It has already been shown that folic acid forticifation can cause harm to some people.

For example, studies have confirmed that unmetabolised folic acid accelerates cognitive decline in the elderly with low levels of vitamin B12.

Similarly, dietary folates have a protective effect against cancer, but folic acid supplementation may increase the incidence of bowel cancer.

It may also increase the incidence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

However, since the 1980s a consensus formed that folic acid is metabolised in the small intestine in a similar way to naturally-occuring folates.

Dr Astley said: "We challenge the underlying scientific premise behind this consensus.

"This has important implications for the use of folic acid in fortification, because even at low doses it could lead to over consumption of folic acid with its inherent risks."

Response

In a statement, the Food Standards Agency said its recommendation was made after an extensive and scientifically robust assessment.

"The FSA Board would not have recommended mandatory fortification if the scientific evidence suggested that there were unacceptable health risks for some groups.

"As part of the process, an expert committee of scientists considered the evidence regarding unmetabolised folic acid and they concluded that the data in humans was insufficient to assess any associated risks.

"They also examined in detail the potential cancer risks to some groups from high folic acid consumption."

The FSA added that it had recommended controls on voluntary fortification, and clear guidance on the use of folic acid supplements.

Both were designed to ensure most people did not exceed the recommended upper daily limit for folic acid.

More... does not always mean better !

Sad tradeoff: Crop yields expand, but nutrition is left behind

October 27th, 2007
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/10...is-left-behind/


Farmers today can grow two to three times as much grain, fruit, and vegetables on a plot of land as they could 50 years ago, but the nutritional quality of many crops has declined, according to a new report from The Organic Center, a group based in Boulder, Colorado. “To get our recommended daily allowance of nutrients, we have to eat many more slices of bread today than people had to eat in the past,” notes report author and Worldwatch Institute food expert Brian Halweil. “Less nutrition per calorie consumed affects consumers in much in the same way as monetary inflation; that is, we have more food, but it’s worth less in terms of nutritional value.”

According to the report, Still No Free Lunch, food scientists have compared the nutritional levels of modern crops with historic, and generally lower-yielding, ones. Today’s food produces 10 to 25 percent less iron, zinc, protein, calcium, vitamin C, and other nutrients, the studies show. Researchers from Washington State University who analyzed 63 spring wheat cultivars grown between 1842 and 2003 found an 11 percent decline in iron content, a 16 percent decline in copper, a 25 percent decline in zinc, and a 50 percent decline in selenium.

Improving the nutritional quality of food on a per-serving basis is an important step in addressing worldwide health problems, the report notes. “Less nutrient-dense foods, coupled with poor food choices, go a long way toward explaining today’s epidemics of obesity and diabetes,” says The Organic Center’s chief scientist, Charles Benbrook.

Plants cultivated to produce higher yields tend to have less energy for other activities like growing deep roots and generating phytochemicals—health-promoting compounds like antioxidants—the report explains. And conventional farming methods, such as close plant spacing and the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, often cause crops to absorb fewer nutrients and have unhealthy root systems and less flavor, and sometimes make them more vulnerable to pests.

Organic farming methods, on the other hand, use manure or cover crops to provide nutrition to crops, have more balanced mixtures of nutrients, and tend to release the nutrients more slowly, the report explains. According to Benbrook, this means plants “develop more robust root systems that more aggressively absorb nutrients from the soil profile, and produce crops with higher concentrations of valuable nutrients and phytochemicals.” Organic food may have as much as 20 percent higher nutritional content for some minerals, and 30 percent more antioxidants on average, than conventional fare, the report concludes.

30/10/2007

From John Hopking's Hop- a must read!

This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life.

Very interesting, must read.
AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHRAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY, BEING THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY
Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins


1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard
tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no
more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the
cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented
from multiplying and forming tumours.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These
could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will
strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer
cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar
substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural
substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical
added to make it white in colour.
Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus.
By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little
chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites,
which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down
to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and
drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at
temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties.
Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the
intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes
to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals,
EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be
a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more
oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

(PLEASE FORWARD IT TO PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT)

CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL , U S - PLEASE READ

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center as well.
Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.
Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.
Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.
Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this
health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food
in the microwave using plastic containers.
This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases
dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning
Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things
as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.
Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He
reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper.
The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in
the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap
and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Organic food better than ordinary praduced products

Organic food 'better than ordinary produce'

By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 1:07am GMT 29/10/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...29/nfood129.xml


Organic food is more nutritious than ordinary produce, and contains higher quantities of antioxidants which help ward off heart disease and cancer, according to an extensive four-year study.

Scientists who led the £12 million project - the biggest ever research programme into organic food - hope their evidence will help persuade the Government to recommend organic produce and stop advising that eating it is merely a "lifestyle choice".

The findings come from Prof Carlo Leifert, whose Newcastle University study was funded by the EU and food companies. It found that organic fruit and vegetables contained up to 40 per cent more antioxidants, which could cut the risk of cancer and heart disease.

Prof Leifert said the health benefits were so striking that moving to organic food was the equivalent of eating an extra portion of fruit and vegetables every day.

He added: "The biggest nutritional problem at the moment is the explosion in obesity, which is linked to heart disease and negative health. If we can take in the goodies we need in a more concentrated way, it could be an important step forward."

Researchers on the Quality Low Imput Food (QLIF) project grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on a 725-acre site at Nafferton Farm, Northumberland. They grew both organic and conventional test crops - including cabbages, lettuces, carrots, potatoes and wheat - side by side and compared factors such as nutritional quality.

The scientists found that antioxidant levels in organic milk were up to 90 per cent higher than in conventional milk, as well as finding up to 40 per cent more antioxidants in organic vegetables.

The Food Standards Agency, which has insisted organic food is no more healthy than conventional produce, has confirmed it will be reviewing the evidence and considering whether to change its advice.

Hundreds of tests over the past five years have failed to reveal improved nutritional value in organic produce.

In January the Soil Association, the leading representative of organic producers, admitted there was a lack of studies showing organic food could be healthier. However, Patrick Holden, the director of the Soil Association, said the latest research could help to contribute to a "seismic" change in the food industry.

• Eating red meat and drinking alcohol even in small quantities increases the risk of developing cancer, a panel of experts will warn this week. The results will be presented by the World Cancer Research Fund after a five-year study.

Cloned meat...

Cloned meat, dairy make way to the table

Oct 29, 2007 6:00 AM (16 hrs ago)
http://www.examiner.com/a-1015939~Cloned_m..._the_table.html


SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Families and friends who share eggnog, lamb curry or beef stew this winter may not know whether the main ingredients came from cloned animals, after the governor vetoed a San Francisco lawmaker’s labeling bill.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to end a voluntary moratorium on the sale of dairy and meat from cloned cattle, goats, pigs and sheep, after it ruled last year that the food is safe for humans. The agency published a health risk assessment in December that noted high death rates among cloned animals and host mothers, partly because of incidents of ‘large animal syndrome’ in cloned cattle and sheep.

A federal bill to require labels on food from cloned animals and their descendents has been stalled in Democratic-controlled congressional committees since February. A similar bill by state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, passed the Legislature last month, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently refused to sign it.

To clone an animal, scientists move its genetic material into excavated donor embryos, which are planted in host mothers to grow as genetic doppelgängers of the prized beast. A Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology survey last year found that two-thirds of Americans are “uncomfortable” with the technology.

Migden said labels on cloned food would let consumers know and choose what they put on the dinner table, but Schwarzenegger told lawmakers in a veto statement that Migden’s proposed rules “could be unworkable, costly and unenforceable,” and might violate federal law.

About a dozen agricultural and retail groups opposed Migden’s bill. California Farm Bureau lobbyist Noelle Cremers said cloning lets livestock producers “more quickly respond to consumer demand” by replicating valued animals, and that it would be “next to impossible” to segregate food, for labeling purposes, from cloned animals and their descendents.

Labels for cloned food would mislead consumers, which would violate federal law, said Cremers, because there’s “absolutely no difference” between food from cloned and non-cloned animals.

But food-safety and animal-welfare groups criticized Schwarzenegger’s decision. “The animals are injected with large amounts of hormones — and that’s a food safety issue,” said Rebecca Spector, the San Francisco-based West Coast director of The Center for Food Safety.

The nonprofit noted in a report that the federal government’s risk assessment relied heavily on studies that weren’t reviewed by other scientists. “We feel very strongly,” Spector said, “that there hasn’t been adequate testing.”

UC Davis biotechnologist Alison Van Eenennaam said overgrown young are a side effect of in vitro fertilization, and that they’re usually delivered safely by Caesarean section. “Most of these companies have got a few vets on staff,” she said. “It’s not like it’s Joe Blow out in the field hoping for the best.”

iPods dangers!

iPods can cause heart pacemakers to malfunction

By Roger Dobson
Published: 28 October 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3104677.ece


In only six years, the small, plastic device that can hold your entire record collection has revolutionised the way we listen to music, changed society and turned the ailing Apple computer company into the dominant force in the download music industry. But researchers are so concerned about new evidence of potential effects of MP3 players on heart pacemakers that a major clinical investigation is to start this month.

The trial comes in the wake of a report earlier this year that iPods may cause pacemaker interference in up to half of patients. A study in Michigan in the US found that when an iPod was held 2 inches from a patient's chest for five to 10 seconds it interfered with pacemakers in half the 100 patients, whose average age was 77.

Now researchers want to test the possible dangers with other types of player and different ages of patients. "Our hypothesis is that the close approximation of portable MP3 players interfere with the appropriate sensing and recording of pacemakers," said researchers at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

There have been concerns about the possible interference of other gadgets with pacemakers, and mobile phones are among those that have been investigated. One study showed that a phone being used at the ear was sufficiently far away to prevent a health risk, but recommended that phones not be put in shirt pockets or used near the implanted device.

The Boston researchers point out that, unlike phones, which are usually held to the ear, portable MP3 players can be held almost anywhere, including positions close to the site of the implanted device.

They cite the research showing that the players caused pacemaker interference in half of patients tested; with over-sensing – where the pacemaker misreads the heart's functioning – in 20 per cent; interference in 29 per cent; and pacemaker inhibition – where the pacemaker stopped functioning properly for a time – in 1.2 per cent. In some cases, interference was detected when the players were held 18 inches from the chest.

Those researchers said that while older people with pacemakers may not use MP3 players, they may well come close to them through contact with grandchildren. As the baby-boomer generation grows older, with many rock musicians in their 60s and 70s, the potential for older people to use MP3 players is growing.

In the Boston trial, four different brands of MP3 players will be tested at three distances from the implanted medical device in children and adults aged four to 55 with congenital heart disease. At each distance the pacemaker will be checked for changes in sensing and pacing. The whole process takes around 10 minutes.

The trial is expected to be completed in September next year.

Gardasil linked to deaths!

Cervical cancer drug Gardasil linked to deaths

By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 1:07am GMT 29/10/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../29/njab129.xml


Fears have been raised over the safety of a cervical cancer vaccine which health officials plan to give all 12-year-old girls, after it was revealed that the drug has been linked to several deaths.

Three young women are reported to have died days after the drug Gardasil was administered, while the jab is also suspected of triggering "adverse reactions" in 1,700 patients. The figures were uncovered by campaigners who made a freedom of information request in the US, where the vaccine was approved for use a year ago.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, which extracted the data, said: "Reports on the vaccine read like a catalogue of horrors."

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The women – aged 12, 19 and 22 – suffered heart attacks or blood clots after being injected with Gardasil, which protects against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus which causes most cases of cervical cancer. Hundreds of others reported suffering what could be adverse reactions, including paralysis, seizures and miscarriages.

The news comes just days after the announcement that the drug would be added to the childhood immunisation programme.

However, it has not been conclusively proven that Gardasil had directly caused any of the deaths or reported health problems.

Nicholas Kitchin, from Gardasil, manufacturers Sanofi Pasteur MSD, said the fact that symptoms were reported after a vaccination did not necessarily mean they were caused by the vaccine.

A spokesman for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said no "proven, serious new risks have been identified", but added the effects would be monitored when Gardasil is used in the UK.

Jackie Fletcher, from the vaccine damage support group Jabs, said: "Trials of this jab have mostly been on adults, so we don't have any idea of the long-term effect on children."

Dr John Oakley, a West Midlands GP, said the trials for Gardasil had been so limited that the children taking it would be like "guinea pigs".

Many health campaigners have welcomed the plan to vaccinate British girls, although there have been claims it will encourage teenagers to have sex early.

29/10/2007

Barium in medical scanning

Barium And Gadolinium Toxicity In Medical Scans?

By Ted Twietmeyer
10-28-7

The abstract posted at the nih.gov website [1] (National Institutes of Health for the USA) about Barium in the environment immediately inspired me to consider other Barium sources, besides those sources which are environmental. Do medical imaging technologies require the use of heavy metals? Yes they do, and in great volume.


If there are people (patients) who have a genetic (or other) susceptibility to Barium in the environment as the research appears to show, imagine what happens if their system is flooded with this metal during a medical procedure. I am referring to the frequent use of Barium as a contrast agent in various types of upper and lower GI tract X-Rays. The amount of Barium required for medical images is millions of times the concentration of that found in the environment.


Another element called Gadolinium is also used in medical MRI imaging. This is administered using a pump to force it into the patient intravenously at exactly the right time during an MRI scan. This element is used to enhance the imaging process. One example of Gadolinium use is imaging the brain when doctors are looking for the long, white vertical threads which are a tell-tale indicator that a patient has MS. Gadolinium's shorter history in the medical imaging industry dates back to when MRI imaging became commonplace, which is about 30 years. The use of Barium for X-Ray imaging dates back much earlier. Even new imaging methods which employ "digital film," Barium is still used.


Modern medicine considers both Barium and Gadolinium as harmless metals to the body. Of course, the same has been said of Mercury and Silver tooth fillings used by the dental profession for about one hundred years, too.


Here are some characteristics of the elements Barium and Gadolinium [2]:

Atomic weight for Barium is 137.33.
Cost (pure) is $55.00/100g.
Conductivity is 1 mohm/cm, which makes a conductor of electricity and better than copper which is 595.8mohm/cm.
Electron shell counts are for Barium are 2,8,18,18,8,2.
Atomic weight for Gadolinium is 157.25.
Cost (pure) is $191.00/100g.
Conductivity is 7.91 mohm/cm.
Electron shell counts are 2,8,18,25,9,2.
Possesses unique paramagnetic properties, and has been used as a refrigerant in magnetic refrigeration.
Note that Copper, long considered a heavy metal, has a lighter atomic weight of 63.456. We routinely consider copper as a heavy metal to the body which is toxic when present in excess. Yet the atomic weight of Barium and Gadolinium are almost 2.5 times heavier than copper! Can this be a good thing?


For those readers who haven't had the honor to be the recipient of an upper GI tract test, it works like this. The patient fasts after midnight of the day before the procedure. Upon arrival at the imaging center or hospital, a white "Barium Milkshake" is given. This concoction contains about a liter of the chalky, milky Barium material. Then X-Rays are taken.


For lower GI tract imaging, more is required of the patient. The lower GI tract is usually emptied through fasting and flushing, and Barium is then administered rectally. The patient must hold this in until imaging is completed. In both cases, Barium works by coating the inside of the stomach or intestines and blocking X-Rays. This permits the doctors to see a clear image to look for suspected abnormalities. These tests are never ordered unless something is suspected to be abnormal.


It's noteworthy here to consider the absorptive properties of both the stomach and large intestine. If you take a pill, some of that pill's medicine will be in your bloodstream in as little as 15 seconds after it enters you stomach. The stomach and the large intestine are not believed to absorb Barium by the medical profession, and have been deemed to be safe to all patients according to the Standard of Care.


When patients are asked by medical personnel about allergies to drugs, Barium or Gadolinium is never considered. And for good reason perhaps ­ having heavy metals in your system often has no pain or side-effects. Even doctors rarely consider the effect of heavy metals unless symptoms are present, which are not the result of a bacterial infection or virus. According to the NIH abstract, the disease MS may be a symptom of Barium in the environment. However, doctors are NOT trained today to see Barium as a source of the disease. Instead, Barium is only considered as a diagnostic tool.


What this strongly raises is the question of whether or not Barium used for upper and lower GI procedures are poisoning people with an overload of the metal. It always seemed to me that pumping someone full of this element must result in SOME absorption of the material, even though the majority of the metal is removed by the body in a relatively short time.

The basic question is this - How long of an exposure to any heavy metal is unhealthy? It can take many hours for the body to purge itself of Barium and Gadolinium - if all of it can ever be removed from the body at all.


Gadolinium might be equally sinister ­ it invades the brain by crossing the blood/brain barrier. This must happen to penetrate the lesions of the brain so they will show up on MRI images. Otherwise, MS lesions will not appear on the scan.


This entire issue of contrast agents (so named by the medical profession) is a very difficult one. Most likely, no contrast agent exists which will be broken down by the body, work effectively and all the while be completely non-toxic. Both X-Ray and MRI technologies must have these agents to make otherwise invisible structures appear on images.


So the question remains of contrast agents ­ when is too much harmful, to whom and when? It could be years before we will hear anything on this subject from watch dog agencies, if ever.


All this gives one pause to consider the alarming rise in incurable diseases like MS. Some estimates put the number of those afflicted with the disease at 10 million in theUSA alone, both diagnosed and those not yet undiagnosed. The addition of Barium as a cause for MS might be added to the list of factors causing the disease. Just as cancer has multiple causes, MS may also have various sources other than the result of a Micoplasma infection. It already appears that genetics is involved in whether someone will develop MS, too.


MY DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this essay is to be construed by the reader as advice to not follow their doctor's orders or advice. It is also not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Issues about risk with regard to any diagnostic procedures are presented here purely as research material only, and must not be construed as medical advice. I strongly advise the reader to do their own research when making decisions regarding all medical care.

Ted Twietmeyer
www.data4science.net
www.bookonmars.info

RESOURCES

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pub
med&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15082100&query_hl=2

[2] http://www.chemicool.com/elements/barium.html

Barium and Multiple Sclerosis

Chronic barium intoxication disrupts sulphated proteoglycan synthesis: a hypothesis for the origins of multiple sclerosis.

Purdey M.
High Barn Farm, Elworthy, Taunton, Somerset TA43PX, UK. tsepurdey@aol.com

High level contamination by natural and industrial sources of the alkali earth metal, barium (Ba) has been identified in the ecosystems/workplaces that are associated with high incidence clustering of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases such as the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Analyses of ecosystems supporting the most renowned MS clusters in Saskatchewan, Sardinia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Guam, NE Scotland demonstrated consistently elevated levels of Ba in soils (mean: 1428 ppm) and vegetation (mean: 74 ppm) in relation to mean levels of 345 and 19 ppm recorded in MS-free regions adjoining. The high levels of Ba stemmed from local quarrying for Ba ores and/or use of Ba in paper/foundry/welding/textile/oil and gas well related industries, as well as from the use of Ba as an atmospheric aerosol spray for enhancing/refracting the signalling of radio/radar waves along military jet flight paths, missile test ranges, etc. It is proposed that chronic contamination of the biosystem with the reactive types of Ba salts can initiate the pathogenesis of MS; due to the conjugation of Ba with free sulphate, which subsequently deprives the endogenous sulphated proteoglycan molecules (heparan sulfates) of their sulphate co partner, thereby disrupting synthesis of S-proteoglycans and their crucial role in the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signalling which induces oligodendrocyte progenitors to maintain the growth and structural integrity of the myelin sheath. Loss of S-proteoglycan activity explains other key facets of MS pathogenesis; such as the aggregation of platelets and the proliferation of superoxide generated oxidative stress. Ba intoxications disturb the sodium-potassium ion pump--another key feature of the MS profile. The co-clustering of various neurodegenerative diseases in these Ba-contaminated ecosystems suggests that the pathogenesis of all of these diseases could pivot upon a common disruption of the sulphated proteoglycan-growth factor mediated signalling systems. Individual genetics dictates which specific disease emerges at the end of the day.

PMID: 15082100 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

27/10/2007

Cosmetic products- toxins containers...

I'll Have My Cosmetics With a Side of Infertility, Please

By Heather Gehlert, AlterNet. Posted October 25, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/story/66074/


Author Stacy Malkan reveals the dangerous truth about everyday products we put in our hair and on our skin.

Carcinogens in cosmetics? Petrochemicals in perfume? If only this were an urban legend. Unfortunately, it's a toxic reality, and it's showing up in our bodies.

In 2004, scientists found pesticides in the blood of newborn babies. A year later, researchers discovered perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, in human breast milk. Today, people are testing positive for a litany of hazardous substances from flame retardants to phthalates to lead.

In her new book, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, Stacy Malkan exposes the toxic chemicals that lurk, often unlabeled, in the personal care products that millions of American women, men and children use every day.

AlterNet spoke with Malkan about these toxins and her five-year effort with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics to get the beauty industry to remove them from its products.

Heather Gehlert: There are so many environmental issues you could've written a book about. Why cosmetics?

Stacy Malkan: I think cosmetics is something that we're all intimately connected to. They're products that we use every day, and so I think it's a good first place to start asking questions. What kinds of products are we bringing into our homes? What kinds of companies are we giving our money to?

It has something pretty interesting in common with global warming too.

It does. I think of it as global poisoning. I think that the ubiquitous contamination of the human species with toxic chemicals is a symptom of the same problem (as global warming), which is an economy that's based on outdated technologies of petrochemicals -- petroleum. So many of the products we're applying to our faces and putting in our hair come from oil. They're byproducts of oil.

Many cosmetic products on the market right now claim they are pure, gentle, clean and healthy. But, as you reveal in this book, they're far from it. Toxic chemicals in these products are showing up in people. What were some of the most surprising toxins you discovered in cosmetics?

Lead in lipstick was pretty surprising. We (the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics) just released that report last week. Many personal care products have phthalates, which is a plasticizer and hormone disruptor. That's why we started the cosmetics campaign -- because we know that women have higher levels of phthalates in their bodies, and we thought that cosmetics might be a reason. But, I think overall, the most surprising thing was to know that there's so much that we don't know about these products. Many, many chemicals are hiding in fragrance. Companies aren't required to list the components of fragrance. Products also are contaminated with carcinogens like 1,4 dioxane and neurotoxins like lead that aren't listed on the label. So it's difficult for consumers to know what we're using.

As a consumer I just want to know what ingredients to avoid, but you say in the book, protecting myself is not as simple as that. Why not?

There are no standards or regulations like there are in, for example, the food industry, where if you buy organic food or food labeled "natural," there's a set of standards and legal definitions that go behind those words. We might like to see those be stronger, but nevertheless, there are meaningful legal definitions. That's not the case in the personal care product industry, where companies often use words like "organic" and "natural" to market products that are anything but. And some of the most toxic products we've found actually had the word "natural" in their name, like natural nail strengtheners that are made with formaldehyde.

Generally speaking, risk assessment involves two factors: a hazard and people's exposure to that hazard. Could you explain some of the unique challenges to assessing risks with cosmetics?

That's a good question. Risk assessment is an extremely oversimplified way of pretending we have enough information to know how much chemicals we can tolerate in our bodies. A risk assessment equation will say, "How hazardous is a chemical, how much are we exposed to it from this one product, and is that harmful?" There's a lot of information left out of that picture: studies that haven't been done to determine impacts on fetuses, the fact that we're exposed to so many of these chemicals in so many places every day, and the fact there have been no -- or very few -- studies about chemical mixtures.

In chapter 2, you say that toxic cosmetics should raise concern for men too, regardless of whether they use any themselves. How so?

Well, men do, first of all, use personal care products. When I ask a group of people what products they've used today, the men will be keeping their hands down and eventually, reluctantly, raising their hands because they're using shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, cologne, lotion.

So it's not just a makeup problem.

No, it's not just a makeup problem. It's all products. And we know that some chemicals in these products are particularly problematic for men. We're all exposed to phthalates, and phthalates interfere with the production of testosterone, and they're linked to health effects like lower sperm counts, birth defects of the penis, testicular tumors.

You've had to struggle with some scary health problems. Tell us about that.

Like many of us, I've had bizarre health problems that nobody can explain: benign lumps in my breasts and thyroid, which is quite common among young women to have thyroid problems. And then also infertility, which is something that's becoming an increasingly common experience for people. And so many of us have heard from our doctors, "Well, we don't know why; we can't tell you why." But I think that's an interesting disconnect that we're looking at how to treat disease, but we're not looking at how to prevent disease.

You admit in the book that you used to be addicted to makeup and so-called personal care products. Do you think that could be related to the health issues you've had?

Well, who knows, and we can never say what caused what and so that's why risk assessment is not a useful tool to -- how do I want to say this -- that's why, in my opinion, we need to get rid of toxins wherever we possibly can in makeup, shampoo and lipstick is obviously a place where they don't need to be. But, yes, I did use a lot of cosmetic products -- 200 chemicals a day just in those products. And I also grew up in a very industrialized neighborhood near one of the largest incinerators in Massachusetts, near oil refineries. And we really didn't talk about these issues at all.

Do you think part of the problem with creating awareness around this issue is that the effects from toxins are often not that immediate? People don't say, Oh, I've been to this toxic site and now I have a rash all over my body.

Right, and that's what we hear from the cosmetics companies when they say, "Well, my product is safe if used as directed, and you can't prove otherwise." Which is true. We can't say that use of X product led to X disease because we're talking about long-term diseases with contributing factors. Doctors usually can't tell us why we got cancer, because it could be due to multiple factors in our pasts. We also know that exposures during critical windows of development -- babies in the womb, even teenagers -- can lead to later-life diseases.

Can you give me an idea of how many chemicals one product can contain? Earlier you said you were exposed to 200 chemicals a day during your youth, but that's not all from one product.

No, I used about 20 products a day. The average woman in the U.S. according to our survey uses 12 products a day with about 180 chemicals. And men use about six products with 80 chemicals combined. But it depends on the product. Some products have dozens of chemicals -- fragrances can have dozens or even hundreds of chemicals that aren't listed on the label. And even fragrance-free products can have a masking fragrance.

Talk a little about the history of the cosmetics industry. When did it come about and why is it so unregulated?

The cosmetics industry has fought really hard to keep itself unregulated for the last 30 years. It was first regulated under the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938. That is a 350-page law with about 1.5 pages that address cosmetics. But it didn't give the FDA the power to require testing (cosmetic) products before they go on the market. The FDA can't require follow-up health monitoring; they can't even recall products. Basically, the FDA has to prove in court that a product is harmful before it can take action. There were several attempts to regulate the industry over the years, and the most well-known was in the 1970s with Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri. He proposed that cosmetics should be regulated more like drugs, where there's a rigorous testing protocol that has to happen before products go on the market, but that was shot down and co-opted. What the industry has done is propose voluntary regulations every time a regulatory threat arises. And so the system that we have now is an industry-sponsored and run panel called the Cosmetics Ingredients Review Board, which is in charge of determining the safety of ingredients in cosmetics. We found lots of problems with that panel. They rushed through ingredients quickly, they hadn't looked at most of the ingredients or actually used these products and, most of the time, they find things to be safe. Even when they do make recommendations to restrict or eliminate ingredients, the industry is free to ignore them and sometimes does.

You say in the book that some companies have different formulations of the same products. Some, with harmful toxins removed, go to Europe, and others, with toxins, go to the U.S. Why is that?

Well, it's outrageous, but Europe has much better health protection laws, and they really take a precautionary approach. The European Union has banned 1,100 chemicals from cosmetics that are thought to cause cancer or reproductive harm, and so they take a precautionary approach by saying, "We know these chemicals are hazardous." Nobody argues about that. Instead of arguing about at what level are they safe in products, we need to take them out of the products and figure out how to make products without them. The United States, on the other hand, says, "We need to be able to prove that an ingredient in this product causes harm before we're going to do anything about it. Consequently, there are lots of known toxins in consumer products. It's not just cosmetics. Another example is formaldehyde in kitchen cabinets -- perfectly legal in the United States. You can buy kitchen cabinets, and they're wafting the carcinogen formaldehyde into your kitchen. You can't sell those cabinets in Europe, in Japan, even in China.

Is it really expensive for companies to reformulate their products to remove toxic chemicals?

It's not expensive to reformulate; many companies have already done it because they had to do it if they want to sell in the European market.

When did you begin working on cosmetic issues? How has the industry changed since then? What's the future outlook?

Well, we started the cosmetics campaign in 2002, when we were concerned about phthalates and found out they were in the majority of cosmetic products. At that time, we started to contact companies to try to have a dialogue with them about the chemicals they were using. ... Overall, I would say the mainstream companies have been incredibly resistant to any kind of change, but we have seen a big change in some products in the last few years. Because Europe banned phthalates, we were able to use that to pressure companies to remove phthalates from some U.S. products, particularly nail products. So we've seen a major shift in the formulation of nail products in the last few years because of the campaign (formaldehyde, toluene, and dibutyl phthalates have been removed from most nail products). So, it's possible that companies can change. They are changing, but not enough and not fast enough.

One thing that struck me about this book is that it's not just a story about cosmetic hazards. It's a story about activism. What was the thinking behind that?

Well, activism is fun, first of all. I think it's the best job in the world. And the inspiring stories from so many people from moms to former models who are speaking out, to the teenagers who have lobbied in Sacramento to get bills passed and now realize they have a political voice that they want to keep using, to nurses who have come together to pressure companies to pass protective policies. I think that's all so positive, and I think that people are coming together in ways that we haven't before.

What practical advice can you give to people wanting to clean up their cosmetics bags?

My best advice is that simpler is better. Really, fewer ingredients, fewer products. For instance, hair color and bubble bath are two things that I've given up. But there are a lot good (nontoxic) products out there on the market, and I would say start by switching out the ones that you use the most frequently like shampoo and deodorant that we're putting by our breast tissue, experiment with different kinds of natural products and just make changes as you can. You can also use the skin deep database to research your products. ... The onus at this point is on consumers to do our own research.

Anything else you'd like to add?

I think it's really important, especially for women in this culture, to recognize that the beauty industry is all about profit and bottom-line thinking. It's not concerned about our health issues. It is not concerned with telling the truth about its products.

To learn more and take action, visit safecosmetics.org. To find out what toxins are in your personal care products, go to www.cosmeticdatabase.org. And to buy the book, check out notjustaprettyface.org.

Children at risk with processed food!

(NewsTarget) New research is creating more reasons for you to think twice before feeding processed foods to your children, or eating it yourself for that matter. If you are struggling to change your family’s diet to raw foods, there is new evidence for why you may want to make the change sooner rather than later. A diet consisting of mostly processed foods is causing fatty liver disease in the young. Liver disease, primarily found in older adults, is now becoming a disease found in children. All this is being caused by the increase of processed foods in our diet.

A six month research project led by David S. Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston was published in the September issue of the journal Obesity. The research was conducted on two groups of mice. Both groups were fed the exact same caloric intake but fed different starches. One group was fed processed high glycemic index (HGI) foods and the other, unprocessed low glycemic index (LGI) foods.

Foodconsumer.org defines Glycemic Index (GI) as “a measure of how fast a food releases glucose from starch. The higher the GI, the faster the food releases glucose.” This rapid release of glucose causes the body to release more insulin, which in turn causes the body to store fat. Examples of HGI foods are processed foods such as white rice, foods containing white flour, and even overly processed whole grains. LGI foods consist of mainly unprocessed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and whole grains.

At the end of the study, both groups of mice weighed the same, but the HGI group had higher body fat, more fat in their blood, and about twice as much fat in their liver. This research has shown that processed food is causing liver disease in many children. While no symptoms are showing in some, it is leading the way for fatal liver disease later in life. There is major concern among health officials that this could be the new health epidemic of the future.

According to an article from CanWest News Service, a 10 year old girl became the first child diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 2000. Now in 2007, liver disease is being found in 5-7 year olds with the youngest child reported being two years old. Fatty liver disease is now showing up in approximately one in every three obese children.

The question is, how will the health care industry react to this news? Will they encourage consumers to change their diets to mostly unprocessed raw foods, or will they label this as a unique disease? The pharmaceutical companies can then create a new drug marketed to children, in cherry and grape flavors, creating consumers of these drugs for life.

One thing to keep in mind is that Glycemic Index isn’t everything. Some HGI foods are good for you, such as dates, parsnips, and watermelon. On the other hand, some LGI foods such as Peanut M&Ms, Snickers bars, and low-fat ice cream are not good for you and should be avoided. Glycemic Index is just one more factor to consider when selecting a healthy diet. The main point of this research is that a diet of mostly processed foods is causing liver disease even in the very young. To avoid or possibly reverse fatty liver disease, it is important to eat a diet that consists of mostly raw foods.

If you are still eating a diet mostly of processed foods because of their convenience, you may want to consider the inconvenience of the end result. Processed foods are being marketed to fit our hectic lifestyle while silently setting us up to fall prey to the other multi-billion dollar industry, the pharmaceutical companies. We need to be cautious of both industries. They both are getting rich at the expense of our health and that of our children.

This research clearly demonstrates that eating a raw food diet is not just another fad diet NewsTarget is promoting, but rather a necessity for the future health of everyone, including our children. The truth is the safest foods are those that do not have a label of ingredients. We need to rethink how we shop for food, what we eat, and most of all the future health of our children. How we eat and think about food today will affect how our children eat and think about food as adults. When it comes to diet, their health truly is in our hands. As this new research has proven, providing children with raw foods can literally save their lives.

For more information about Glycemic Index:

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/a/glycemicindlist.htm

http://www.mendosa.com/common_foods.htm

About Propolis more benefits and usage

Extract of propolis may function as a natural antibacterial preservative, according to research conducted by scientists from the National University of Technology in Argentina and published in the journal Food Chemistry.

Researchers applied extracts of Argentinean propolis to cultures of E. coli bacteria. They found that this extract inhibited bacterial growth at an average minimum concentration of 14.3 milligrams of soluble compounds per milliliter of the most active propolis. This concentration was effective on E. coli populations as high as 10,000 cells per milliliter.

According to lead author Enzo Tosi, this concentration is safe for human consumption. "Most propolis components are natural constituents of food and recognized as safe substances," he said.

The researchers say that a safe dose is probably 1.4 milligrams of propolis per kilogram of body weight per day (0.63 milligrams per pound), which translates to approximately 70 milligrams per day for an adult.

Propolis is a waxy resin that bees collect from plants and use to seal cracks or other holes in their hives, or to seal away foreign substances (like animal carcasses) that are too large to remove. The composition of propolis varies widely depending on the individual hive, the region where the hive lives and even the time of year. This has made it difficult to evaluate propolis' effects with clinical studies.

Nonetheless, there is a substantial market for propolis as a health supplement, and it has been found to be useful in treating inflammations, minor skin wounds, ulcers, bacteria, viruses and fungus. It has also been said to improve heart health and reduce cataract risk. However, the Argentinean study is the first to test its use as a preservative.

A growing reluctance among consumers to use synthetic preservatives, which are often derived from industrial chemicals, has led to a boom in natural preservatives research. Food companies have been looking into rosemary extract, for example, as an alternative to synthetics.

The current worldwide market in food preservatives is estimated at $574.8 billion, and will likely reach $710 billion by 2008.

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ADDtives and ADHD !

ADHD has been a hot topic in the media for a few years due to raising diagnoses, medication concerns, and debates to whether it is even a real health condition. New research has found that a few food additives can cause the symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of ADHD. Once we establish the symptoms of ADHD, we can correlate them with the symptoms produced in the study by specific ingredients that we can then identify and eliminate from our families’ diets.

What is ADHD?

It is a common group of symptoms that mean a child is having problems learning, socializing, and focusing. Parents and teachers complain of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, and less emphasis has been placed on what it must feel like to have the symptoms- to not be able to control one’s self, play with other children, and please caring adults. Let’s call ADHD and its set of symptoms an unsolved problem. This problem is really about the quality and richness of life in a growing child; how can the quality of life of children with this problem be improved? A very simple answer, though it may not prove to be the only answer, has been found. Research has recently found that some ingredients in common foods, when ingested, inhibit children to flourish and grow to the full extent of their capabilities. It is daunting to find how easy it is to buy and consume products that are unsafe, but there is healthy nutrition available, and because these ingredients have not been banned, it is the consumer’s responsibility, our responsibility, to ensure the safety of our families. So one proven answer to the problems ADHD presents is to eliminate artificial preservatives and colors from children’s diets.

The Study

A study conducted by the UK’s government Food Standards Agency (FSA) found a definite link between food additives and behavior problems in children, such as temper tantrums and poor concentration. Food colorings and one preservative were tested on 3 year olds and 8-9 year olds. The culprits are tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104), allura red AC (E129), and the preservative sodium benzoate (E211). When combinations of these ingredients were administered, there was either a significant correlation with decreased attention or a trend towards it. Because the ingredients were all used together, it is not possible to say if it was one or all of the ingredients that played a significant role in changing the children’s behavior.

Can we generalize?

Until further research is done, the safety of other additives is unknown, and it is left to the parents to decide if this is significant enough to generalize to all artificial ingredients. This is not the only study to find artificial colors harmful. European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that the coloring Red 2G (E120), found in some breakfast sausages and burger meat, may cause cancer in animals and humans, so the evidence against these additives is, well, adding up. Several doctors from leading universities in the U.S. were convinced enough as early as 1999 to write letters to the Department of Health and Human Services asking for further investigation into the effect of additives and food on behavior. See the letters here.

Where else are these ingredients found?

An extremely bright, unnatural color is a good indication of food coloring like in Lifesavers and Jelly Beans. Most candies, though they may boast to be low calorie and/or fat free, probably include artificial colors; the consumer must check the label. Organic alternatives without artificial ingredients have emerged such as organic lollipops from Yummy Earth and several other types of candies at College Farm Organic and Newman’s Own Organics.

Sodium Benzoate is most often found in soft drinks but can also be found in many other foods for preservation like condiments and pickles. Sodium benzoate is also used as an anti-icing fluid in automobiles and has previously been found to become carcinogenic when mixed with the additive Vitamin C and has changed the DNA of mitochondrial yeast cells in the laboratory. Sodas were not explicitly used in the new research, but there are many reasons not to drink soda, one being that it “dissolves away your skeletal system.” Previous studies found a strong link between children’s consumption of soft drinks and “behavioral difficulties, hyperactivity, mental distress and overall mental health problems.”

If it is hard to believe additives in food could have caused present symptoms, it is now undeniable that additives can spontaneously create problems or exacerbate existing ones. Higher incidences of behavior problems and neurological disorders have also been associated with vaccinations.

If you notice behavior problems emerging in your child, there are safe treatments for him/her without using medications. Proven help in addition to eliminating artificial ingredients in diet include supplementing with zinc and omega-3’s. Parents also have options in behavioral therapy.

The new evidence is compelling to suggest additives can cause behavior problems, but the argument can be made that children are born with behavior problems. While some symptoms may essentially be a part of a child’s DNA, it may also be a possibility that toxins from the parents played a part in creating the problems before birth. The Environmental Working Group found 287 chemicals in newborn babies from their parents and the environment. Could these be contributing to health and attention problems? Could it also be possible that food additives eaten by the parents, especially by the mother during pregnancy, are determining the child’s temperament before birth? There is a huge gap open for further research, and in the meantime, consumers must be conscious of their choices for themselves and their children, born and unborn.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Whited is an independent researcher dedicated to spreading awareness about health news, proven alternative treatments, and unsafe mainstream products.


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26/10/2007

Brave New World...

BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DRUGGED POPULATIONS

http://www.nomorefakenews.com/archives/arc...ew.php?key=3404

OCTOBER 25, 2007. This is another backgrounder for my upcoming one-night seminar, THE ROLE OF MEDICAL DRUGS IN HUMAN ILLNESS. Just click on the link above to sign up.

In Aldous Huxley’s famous novel, BRAVE NEW WORLD, all citizens are genetically engineered from the (artificial) wombs in which they are born---engineered for happiness and contentment.

But as always, the technology isn’t perfect. So when people get antsy or depressed, they go to a dispensary where they are given a drug called Soma. It brings the person back to a “happy” state of mind.

In our world, we have all the tranquilizers and the succeeding generations of antidepressants. These crude hammers are being sold to millions and millions of people, and leading psychiatrists are defending the common practice of giving the drugs to babies.

I can recall that at age four, I was taken to a doctor for a head X-ray. I don’t remember why, but I fought against it. The doctor and I were struggling on the table as he was trying to put my head against the cushions. These days, that might prompt a quick diagnosis of some disorder and a drug script. And then who knows what the result might have been.

Brain drugs in general mess with the complex systems of neurotransmitters, and the outcome is unpredictable and dangerous. It’s folly, and it’s a crime in progress.

On a social level, the aim is to achieve conformity and “fitting in.” If people give in to this drugging, we will at some point reach the “pleasant nightmare” of Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD. Humans as smiling robots. Depending on some government agency to wake up and ban these drugs---that’s what I would call a mental disorder.



JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

25/10/2007

Breast cancer- Education vs. medication!

This is the second annual publication of NewsTarget's "Education, Not Medication" program designed to teach women the truth about how to prevent and even cure breast cancer. This disease is 90 percent preventable, mostly using completely free therapies.


The emphasis on breast cancer "screening," and the circus of holding breast cancer awareness months is, of course, all about recruiting more women into a system of treatment that generates profits for drug companies. Using fear-based tactics of recruitment (like telling women, "You'll die in six months if you don't undergo chemotherapy..."), the breast cancer industry manages to corral women of all races and ages into treatments that actually harm far more women than they help. New research, for example, shows that certain classes of chemotherapy drugs are so dangerous to human health that they cause heart failure in many women who use them. The drugs are called anthracyclines, and the research was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (October, 2007).

Chemotherapy is so dangerous to the heart, liver, kidneys and brain that the very act of screening for cancer tumors with mammography machines ultimately causes harm to most patients. Find that hard to believe? Researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Center in Denmark studied 500,000 women to determine the results of breast cancer screening programs. They found that for every one woman helped by breast cancer screening, ten were harmed through false diagnosis or unnecessary treatments that devastated their health.

"What seems like good and obvious advice in everyday life is not always scientifically or medically sound", said Peter Gotzsche, MD, director of the center. "So we might say there is a benefit of one but a harm of 10 from screening for breast cancer." You can read more about that story at www.NewsTarget.com/020829.html

In other words, breast cancer screening is surprisingly harmful to women. That's partly because the procedure itself irradiates the breast tissue and actually causes cancer, but also because practically any screening result producing a questionable blur on the final image may result in a woman being manipulated through fear into undergoing aggressive, toxic cancer treatments even when they never had breast cancer in the first place. (False positives are extremely common in breast cancer screening, and in some cases, the machinery is incorrectly calibrated and doesn't even meet radiology standards.)

And yet breast cancer screening is the only form of "prevention" offered by the cancer industry. But it isn't prevention, it's detection. Breast cancer screening does nothing to educate women how to really prevent breast cancer, nor does it teach women how to change their diets and lifestyles so that breast cancer never develops in the first place. In fact, the strategy of the cancer industry today can be best described as waiting for women to get cancer, then treating it with toxic drugs that just happen to generate huge profits for pharmaceutical companies.

While tens of millions of women are developing undetectable, early-stage breast cancer right now, the cancer industry does nothing. They will not tell these women how to halt the growth of cancer tumors; they will only wait until the cancer becomes large enough to see on a screening test, and then they will scare the women to death with harmful, authoritative medical demands and toss them into chemotherapy -- a treatment that causes permanent, irreversible harm to the brain, heart, liver, kidneys and other organs.

Yet even the World Health Organization admits that 70 percent of all cancers can be prevented through simple changes in food and lifestyle. That number is probably conservative, though. My own opinion is that 90 percent of all cancers can be prevented through simple food and lifestyle changes. Yet no one in the cancer industry seems interested in teaching any of these strategies to women. In the cancer industry, there is no incentive to teach women how to avoid breast cancer, because to do so would eliminate a future customer! Billions of dollars in revenue are at stake here, and the cancer industry is banking on the continuation of this disease among the population.

That's why I started the Education Not Medication program. It is a humble effort to teach women how to prevent their own breast cancer through scientifically-supported natural health strategies that are easy to understand and simple to follow. They include things like eating more broccoli and garlic, getting more natural sunlight on your skin (to generate the anti-cancer nutrient Vitamin D, which has recently been shown to prevent an astonishing 77 percent of ALL cancers!) and avoiding cancer-causing chemicals in manufactured foods (such as sodium nitrite, found in bacon, sausage and virtually all packaged meats). A more detailed list is offered below.

The cancer industry remains silent about these cancer prevention solutions. Ever wonder why? It's because the livelihood of the industry depends on more cancer! If cancer rates plummeted by 70 percent or more, the industry would be devastated. The incomes, egos and power positions of cancer industry operators depend entirely on the continued spread of cancer among the population.

Ever notice that cancer centers are not called, "Anti-Cancer Centers?" You see them in virtually every city and state across the country: The Washington Cancer Center, or the San Francisco Cancer Center. Here in Arizona, we have a massive, new building being constructed, and it's named the Arizona Cancer Center. These are all monuments to cancer, and they are usually for-profit businesses constructed for the purpose of making money from a woman's disease. They turn cancer into profit, and they depend on the continuation of cancer to stay in business.

That's why there's no real effort underway to teach women how to prevent breast cancer. There's no program in place to teach women about the anti-cancer effects of sunlight and vitamin D (in fact, cancer industry groups like the American Cancer Society run public service ads warning people about sunlight!), there's no honest effort to teach women about the natural anti-cancer medicine founds in certain foods, and no one is telling women the truth about the cancer-causing chemicals in perfumes, laundry detergent, cosmetics and personal care products. Recent research shows that even air fresheners are contaminated with phthalates, and new details about cancer-causing chemicals in household products seem to emerge every week.

But when it comes to preventing cancer, the cancer industry is silent. Why should they say anything, anyway? If they teach women how to prevent breast cancer, they lose customers. Besides, the scheme they're running right now is working brilliantly. They maximize revenues and profits by preventing prevention and waiting for women to get cancer, then treating them with high-profit pharmaceuticals, radiation and surgical procedures. They have the easiest business model in the world: All they have to do is keep their mouths shut about what causes cancer, and wait for new customers to fill the cancer centers. And to help them out, corporations, media organizations and volunteers (many are women!) actually help them raise more money!

Women raising money for cancer industry non-profit groups makes about as much sense as Jews raising money for Hitler. The cancer industry is exploiting these women, using their bodies to generate profits!

The cancer industry has been getting away with this scam for years, but I say enough is enough. It's time to declare, "The Emperor has no clothes!" and that the best way to help protect the lives of women is to teach them how to avoid breast cancer rather than waiting for them to get it.

And doing so is surprisingly simple. All you have to do is raise awareness about the things that cause breast cancer vs. the things that prevent breast cancer. This can be done through public service announcements, information handouts, or even internet campaigns like this one.

I also suggest that all these cancer treatment centers donate 100 percent of their profits to cancer prevention campaigns. It's wrong to profit from a woman's cancer, is it not? If these businesses really cared about stopping cancer, they'd refuse to profit from the disease and, instead, use the money to help stop cancer in future generations of women (and men, for that matter).

What an idea, huh? That these ultra-wealthy non-profits and billion-dollar corporations might spend some money on teaching women how to prevent cancer...

If it ever really happens, of course, it will only be as a cover-your-ass reaction to public awareness about the corporatization of the breast cancer industry. As word spreads, these non-profits will have to do something to save their reputation, so they'll start running tiny "prevention" campaigns to save face. But underneath the facade, make no mistake: cancer is big, big business, and the cancer industry is driven by profiting from a woman's body, not protecting it from cancer.

"[The cancer industry is] a market-driven industry that feeds off breast cancer survivors." - Health Studies researcher Samantha King, author of Pink Ribbons Inc.

Here, for the benefit of women everywhere, is a partial list of the things that cause cancer and things that don't. You're not going to find full descriptions and citations here, as that would require an entire book all by itself, but this is a very useful reference list that tells the truth about what causes or prevents cancer in the human body.

18 things that CAUSE cancer: (in no particular order)
Smoking cigarettes
Mammography radiation - see articles on mammograms
Chemotherapy and radiation
Perfumes and fragrance products
Cosmetics and personal care products - see articles on personal care products
Home cleaning products, including laundry detergent, dryer sheets, etc.
Drinking non-organic milk or eating non-organic dairy products
Hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids - See Poison In the Food or articles on hydrogenated oils
Plastic food containers - includes plastic lining inside food cans
Sodium nitrite - found in most processed meats, see articles on sodium nitrite
Pesticides, PCBs, chlorine and other chemicals
Acrylamides (formed during high-heat food processing such as frying)
Watching television / lack of exercise
Severe emotional distress or relationship stress
Refined sugars / refined grains
Dry cleaning chemicals
Hair color chemicals
Nail polish remover



22 things that PREVENT cancer:
Vitamin D and sunshine - see the Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D
Anti-cancer foods - see articles about anti-cancer foods
Medicinal mushrooms - reishi, shiitake, agaricus blazei, etc. See www.MushroomScience.com or www.DragonHerbs.com
Green tea - see articles about green tea
Broccoli and cruciferous vegetables - see articles about broccoli
Lycopene and tomatoes
Infra-red saunas and sweat lodges - because sweating expels toxins
Chlorella - see articles on chlorella, or check out a recommended chlorella product: Rejuvenate! From IntegratedHealth.com (product to be launched soon)
Pomegranate seeds - see artiles on pomegranate or http://www.ats.org/news.php?id=32
Omega-3 oils / chia seeds - available from GoodCauseWellness.com
Rainforest herbs - There are many anti-cancer rainforest herbs, including graviola and Cat's Claw (Una de Gato). Recommended sources is Terry Pezzi of the high-integrity Amazon Herb Company (also helping to preserve the Amazon rainforest) - Another great source of rainforest herbs is Rain Tree with Leslie Taylor
Juice detoxification - Read books by Dr. Gabriel Cousens or visit his retreat in Southern Arizona
Acupuncture - helps move blood and chi (body's energy)
Sprouts - ALL sprouts are anti-cancer. Best sprouting machine is the EasyGreen Automatic Sprouter (use any search engine to find resellers)
Red clover - Helps cleanse the blood. Find from any supplement maker.
Deep breathing / oxygenation / stress reduction - Best product is called Stress Eraser (highly recommended)
Yoga, Tai Chi or Pilates - These all boost lymph circulation
Cacao - (real chocolate) - Good sources are NavitasNaturals.com or Superfoods.com
Therapeutic massage - helps move lymph, boost circulation
Mint - grow your own (the easiest plant to grow)
Apricot pits / laetrile / vitamin B17 - View this World Without Cancer video featuring G. Edward Griffin
Blackberries - Most berries contain some form of anti-cancer medicine

Nutrition and disease prevention...Education vs. medication !

Raise a glass to a diet of fruit and veg which slashes heart attack risk by half

By FIONNA MACRAE - More by this author »
Last updated at 23:45pm on 23rd October 2007
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770


A diet based on fruit and vegetables accompanied by the odd glass of wine cuts the risk of heart attack by more than half, researchers claim.

A study of almost 25,000 women showed that those who followed the diet were 60 per cent less likely to suffer heart problems.

Non-smokers who followed it and also exercised cut the risk by 90 per cent.

The study in Sweden will be of great interest in Britain where more than 113,000 women died from heart disease and stroke in 2004, 38,000 more than died from cancer.

The researchers tracked the diet and health of a group of postmenopausal women for six years.

During the course of the study, 308 of the women had a heart attack, of which 51 were fatal.

Analysis showed that those who ate lots of fruit and vegetables in conjunction with wholegrain foods, fish, beans and small amounts of alcohol were 57 per cent less likely to have had a heart attack.

The amount of alcohol found to be beneficial was roughly the equivalent of half a glass of wine a day.

Writing in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said diet and lifestyle could have a huge effect on heart health. "Coronary heart disease is the most important cause of death and disability in women," they said.

"Despite a lower incidence in women, coronary heart diseaserelated mortality and the percentage of sudden deaths from coronary heart disease without previous symptoms is higher.

"And the trend of decline in incidence is slower than in men."

A study published in August found that fruit, nuts and vegetables do not cut the chances of heart disease among those who are most at risk.

While generally good for the heart, they had no effect at all on women in the high-risk category, according to research in the U.S.

Previous studies have claimed antioxidants in fruit - vitamins C and E and beta carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A - have all helped reduce the chances of a heart attack.

But a ten-year study of more than 8,000 women with a history of heart disease said this claim is simply not true.

None of the antioxidants found in fruit had any effect on reducing the risk of a heart attack or death, said Nancy Cook, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

GM crops and antibiotic resistance...

Did GM Crops Create Antibiotic Drug-Resistance In SA?

By Adriana Stuijt
10-23-7

In 1999, when South Africa became one of the first countries in the world to publicly introduce large-scale farming of genetically- manipulated food crops, the country's 'Safe Food Coalition' spokesman Angus Durran raised major concerns over the health issues surrounding genetically engineered food - then a brand-new, untested technology. For several years before that, South Africa was one of the testing-grounds for these Monsanto crops and set up its own brand, SAGENE to market the GM-seeds in the rest of Africa.

"The types of genes and proteins introduced into high tech food crops could have dangerous side-effects, as has been shown in a well-documented case where a food allergen from Brazil nuts was transferred to soybeans through gene splicing," he said.
"There were concerns that bacteria in the human gut may become resistant to antibiotics from marker genes in such plants."

His concerns were ignored and indeed laughed at by South African government officals. Today, South Africa is listed sixth as the world's major producers of genetically-manipulated crops - from huge plantings of corn, wheat and soybeans to cotton -- yet the country still displays very few warnings to this effect on its labelling of these products - which are also exported extensively to the rest of southern Africa.

See recent article about the South African GM-crop programme:
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=19012&

Today, South African scientists also published a paper in which they directly accused the World Health Organisation of "manufacturing" the uniquely-South African killer strain of Extensively drug-resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB) -- which is now killing many thousands of people in SA in a seemingly unstoppable epidemic spreading rapidly throughout southern Africa. For the past decade, these scientists had been tracking the South African TB- strain's increasing drug-resistance and say that this is due because of the WHO's distribution of new anti-TB drugs to SA without their first being tested for drug resistance.

see:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...o-xti101907.php

My question is this: 'Is it a coincidence that the world's biggest and deadliest epidemic of XDR-TB also occurs in the very same country to first grow Monsanto's genetically-manipulated food crops and cottons on a large scale since 1999?

23/10/2007

Poison in our mouth- Mercury!

VIDEO: Poison in the Mouth

Monday October 22, 2007
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2...225824&hl=en-GB



Startling documentary shows evidence of brain damage from Mercury in silver amalgam fillings.

Most dentists who deny mercury is harmful, will remove them without precautions and can cause a relapse or an equivalent of over 10 years mercury exposure in one go if they drill them out, so if you think you need to remove and replace them, be sure to search out a qualified dentist who uses correct procedures to remove & replace them with safe alternatives like ceramic fillings, or else leave them in until they need replacing if you have had them for ages, and get ceramic ones or a safe alternative to mercury amalgam.

The IAOMT gives guidelines for the removal of mercury amalgam fillings in a safe way, as you will need to go on a mercury detox program before and after taking them out to rid your body of the amount of mercury you will absorb during extraction, as no matter how many precautions taken, you will still be exposed to very high levels, so will need detox, but be careful, research this well if you decide to take action, as you can do more harm than good if you don’t know what you are doing, you have been warned.

‘Humet-R’ detox formula is used by many dentists as they say it’s a natural safe detox formula. Their website is here, and you should ask them about directions and amalgam removal advice if you feel you need and are thinking of removing mercury amalgams; http://www.fulcrumhealth.co.uk/page%201F.htm

Check the link below for dental protocals on removing mercury amalgams safely, though there is always going to be some exposure and risks which is why detox needs to be done prior to and after removals. http://www.iaomt.org/articles/category_view.asp?catid=30

It’s a very serious matter and some who have had them removed by irresponsible dentists or quacks cashing in on this, have suffered greatly!

I can’t be responsible and so assume no responsibility for people who get their mercury amalgam fillings removed and suffer serious consequences, as you must do your research, and find out, & ask questions to safeguard your health. This research is made public to help others as I can’t just sit on this stuff.

Chemicals in kids bodies!

Tests reveal high chemical levels in kids' bodies

By Jordana Miller
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/22...rden/index.html


"In the beginning, I wasn't worried at all; I was fascinated," Hammond, 37, recalled.

But that fascination soon changed to fear, as tests revealed that their children -- Rowan, then 18 months, and Mikaela, then 5 -- had chemical exposure levels up to seven times those of their parents.

"[Rowan's] been on this planet for 18 months, and he's loaded with a chemical I've never heard of," Holland, 37, said. "He had two to three times the level of flame retardants in his body that's been known to cause thyroid dysfunction in lab rats."

The technology to test for these flame retardants -- known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) -- and other industrial chemicals is less than 10 years old. Environmentalists call it "body burden" testing, an allusion to the chemical "burden," or legacy of toxins, running through our bloodstream. Scientists refer to this testing as "biomonitoring."

Most Americans haven't heard of body burden testing, but it's a hot topic among environmentalists and public health experts who warn that the industrial chemicals we come into contact with every day are accumulating in our bodies and endangering our health in ways we have yet to understand.

"We are the humans in a dangerous and unnatural experiment in the United States, and I think it's unconscionable," said Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Trasande says that industrial toxins could be leading to more childhood disease and disorders.

"We are in an epidemic of environmentally mediated disease among American children today," he said. "Rates of asthma, childhood cancers, birth defects and developmental disorders have exponentially increased, and it can't be explained by changes in the human genome. So what has changed? All the chemicals we're being exposed to."

Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, a public health advocacy group, disagrees.

"My concern about this trend about measuring chemicals in the blood is it's leading people to believe that the mere ability to detect chemicals is the same as proving a hazard, that if you have this chemical, you are at risk of a disease, and that is false," she said. Whelan contends that trace levels of industrial chemicals in our bodies do not necessarily pose health risks.

In 2004, the Hollands became the first intact nuclear family in the United States to undergo body burden testing. Rowan, at just 1½ years old, became the youngest child in the U.S. to be tested for chemical exposure with this method.

Rowan's extraordinarily high levels of PBDEs frightened his parents and left them with a looming question: If PBDEs are causing neurological damage to lab rats, could they be doing the same thing to Rowan? The answer is that no one knows for sure. In the three years since he was tested, no developmental problems have been found in Rowan's neurological system.

Trasande said children up to six years old are most at risk because their vital organs and immune system are still developing and because they depend more heavily on their environments than adults do.

"Pound for pound, they eat more food, they drink more water, they breathe in more air," he said. "And so [children] carry a higher body burden than we do."

Studies on the health effects of PBDEs are only just beginning, but many countries have heeded the warning signs they see in animal studies. Sweden banned PBDEs in 1998. The European Union banned most PBDEs in 2004. In the United States, the sole manufacturer of two kinds of PBDEs voluntarily stopped making them in 2004. A third kind, Deca, is still used in the U.S. in electrical equipment, construction material, mattresses and textiles.

Another class of chemicals that showed up in high levels in the Holland children is known as phthalates. These are plasticizers, the softening agents found in many plastic bottles, kitchenware, toys, medical devices, personal care products and cosmetics. In lab animals, phthalates have been associated with reproductive defects, obesity and early puberty. But like PBDEs, little is known about what they do to humans and specifically children.

Russ Hauser, an associate professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, has done some of the few human studies on low-level phthalate exposure. His preliminary research shows that phthalates may contribute to infertility in men. A study led by Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester in New York shows that prenatal exposure to phthalates in males may be associated with impaired testicular function and with a defect that shortens the space between the genitals and anus.

The Environmental Protection Agency does not require chemical manufacturers to conduct human toxicity studies before approving their chemicals for use in the market. A manufacturer simply has to submit paperwork on a chemical, all the data that exists on that chemical to date, and wait 90 days for approval.

Jennifer Wood, an EPA spokeswoman, insists the agency has the tools to ensure safe oversight.

"If during the new-chemical review process, EPA determines that it may have concerns regarding risk or exposure, the EPA has the authority to require additional testing," she said. EPA records show that of the 1,500 new chemicals submitted each year, the agency asks for additional testing roughly 10 percent of the time. The EPA has set up a voluntary testing program with the major chemical manufacturers to retroactively test some of the 3,000 most widely used chemicals.

Trasande believes that is too little, too late.

"The problem with these tests is that they are really baseline tests that don't measure for the kind of subtle health problems that we're seeing," Dr. Trasande said.

In the three years since her family went through body burden testing, Michelle Hammond has become an activist on the issue. She's testified twice in the California legislature to support a statewide body burden testing program, a bill that passed last year. Michelle also speaks to various public health groups about her experience, taking Mikaela, now 8, and Rowan, now 5, with her. So far, her children show no health problems associated with the industrial chemicals in their bodies.

"I'm angry at my government for failing to regulate chemicals that are in mass production and in consumer products." Hammond says. "I don't think it should have to be up to me to worry about what's in my couch."

20/10/2007

US population is " born" toxic - poisoned through generations!

PBDEs in U.S. infants mirror adult population

Science News –October 17, 2007
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/est...b_prenatal.html


The largest study yet of PBDEs in infants confirms trends seen in adult populations.
The largest study yet of PBDEs in U.S. infants confirms that American babies' concentrations of the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic compounds are at least twice as high as those of European infants. The data also reaffirm other trends observed in studies of adults.

The study (PDF: 711KB), posted online in Environmental Health Perspectives on September 27, is also significant because of its demographics. The research team led by Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins University examined 297 infants, of whom 70% were African-American, 21% Caucasian, and 8% Asian. Two-thirds of the mothers were unmarried, nearly 30% did not complete high school, and almost half were overweight or obese before their pregnancies. "To date, there is little data with regards to exposures [to PBDEs of infants] in inner-city, largely African-American populations," the researchers write.

The main PBDE compounds in the infants' umbilical-cord blood were associated with the Penta and Octa formulations, which have not been used in new U.S. products since the end of 2004. The samples were collected from November 2004 to March 2005.

Studies show that PBDEs are unlike most other persistent organic pollutants in that a small percentage of people harbor concentrations significantly higher than the median. Infants in the Johns Hopkins study also followed this pattern; 5% of the population was born with overall PBDE concentrations that were three to five times higher than the median.

Younger mothers in the study tended to have higher PBDE levels, a result similar to that reported in another recent study (J. Occup. Environ. Med. 2005, 47, 199–211).

The Baltimore babies' levels of BDE-209, the main compound in the Deca formulation currently used in the U.S. and Europe, were below the level of detection. In contrast, in a recent study of Spanish infants, BDE-209 was the dominant congener in some tissues (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2007, DOI 10.1021/es0714484). —KELLYN BETTS

Drugs out of the market! What about the kids who used them....

Antidepressant Ritalin to be delisted because of abuse

The Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071019TDY04303.htm


A panel of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on Wednesday decided to remove the psychotropic drug Ritalin from its list of approved medicines to treat depression as it has become widely abused.

Following the decision by the pharmaceutical and food sanitation council, the ministry within this month will restrict the prescription of the highly addictive drug solely for the treatment of narcolepsy.

Ritalin is the brand name of methylphenidate hydrochloride, a central nervous system stimulant.

To prevent a further increase of the abuse of the drug, especially among young people, the ministry ordered Novartis Pharma K.K., the pharmaceutical company that produces and distributes the drug, to develop a system to manage its distribution.

The Minato Ward, Tokyo-based company plans to set up the system by early next year.

Under the new system, which is as strict as that applied for narcotics for medical use, doctors with expertise in diagnosing narcolepsy as well as medical institutions and pharmacies that prescribe the drug will be required to be preregistered.

Also at the panel meeting, Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K. proposed the same management system regarding the distribution of Concerta, a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

(Oct. 19, 2007)