Experts say it may not be possible to eliminate chronic wasting disease in deer and elk in Canada.

The fatal infectious disease is so well established in Saskatchewan and Alberta that the federal government and some provinces are rethinking how to deal with what is commonly known as CWD.

In 2005, Ottawa announced a national strategy to control chronic wasting disease in the hope of finding ways to eradicate it. Now the emphasis is shifting to preventing CWD from spreading, especially in the wild.

"We have to realize that we may not be able to eradicate this disease currently from Canada, given that we don't have any effective tools, so we may be looking at switching from eradication to control," said Penny Greenwood, national manager of domestic disease control for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The agency says it is working with the provinces and the game-ranching industry to come up with a better plan, perhaps by next spring.

"We feel that the current program that we have had in place for chronic wasting disease ... is not effective in achieving its goals," Greenwood said.

CWD is caused by abnormal proteins called prions and is similar to mad cow disease. There is no vaccine against it. Symptoms can take months or years to develop. They include weight loss, tremors, lack of co-ordination, paralysis and, ultimately, death.

Think you do just fine on five or six hours of shut-eye? Chances are, you are among the many millions who unwittingly shortchange themselves on sleep.

Research shows that most people require seven or eight hours of sleep to function optimally. Failing to get enough sleep night after night can compromise your health and may even shorten your life. From infancy to old age, the effects of inadequate sleep can profoundly affect memory, learning, creativity, productivity and emotional stability, as well as your physical health.

According to sleep specialists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, among others, a number of bodily systems are negatively affected by inadequate sleep: the heart, lungs and kidneys; appetite, metabolism and weight control; immune function and disease resistance; sensitivity to pain; reaction time; mood; and brain function.

Poor sleep is also a risk factor for depression and substance abuse, especially among people with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Anne Germain, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. People with PTSD tend to relive their trauma when they try to sleep, which keeps their brains in a heightened state of alertness.

In case you've been completely unplugged and are just tuning in now, Angelina Jolie revealed last month that she had a preventative double mastectomy. The controversial procedure nearly broke the Internet, with supporters applauding her bravery and others scorning American healthcare. Her husband Brad Pitt called her choice "absolutely heroic," but not everyone in Hollywood is as in awe of the actress - notably breast cancer survivor Melissa Etheridge.

During a recent interview with the Washington Blade, the 52-year-old rocker was asked her opinion on Jolie's double mastectomy, and her sentiments did not echo those of other celebrities who lauded the 38-year-old mother of six. Etheridge said, "I wouldn't call it the brave choice." She added, "I actually think it's the most fearful choice you can make when confronting anything with cancer."

A scathing new report on Celestial Seasonings teas and parent company Hain Celestial, shows 91% of the samples of Celestial Seasonings teas tested contained pesticides in levels that exceed U.S Federal limits.

High pesticides in 91% of samples

10 out of 11 varieties of Celestial Seasonings teas, one of the largest specialty tea manufacturers in North America, were found to contain excess pesticides in Antioxidant Max Blood Orange and Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape among other varieties.

From great beginnings...

Started in 1969, Celestial Seasonings was "founded on the belief that all-natural herbal teas could help people live healthier lives."

However, the tests conducted by EuroFins, an independent analytic testing company, determined that many varieties of Celestial Seasonings teas contained potentially dangerous levels of multiple pesticides.

The tests were part of a larger report by investment company Glaucus Research, which is highly critical of Celestial Seasonings parent company Hain Celestial. Read the full Glaucus report here. (Copies of the pesticide test results begin on page 29).

In my clinical work involving clients who typically present with chronic somatic problems, it is truly a joy when markers emerge that reflect, "the means by which" their healing experiences occurred.

Since beginning to write this series of articles on "Freeing the Heart," more and more of my clients are regaining their quality of life more quickly.

Additionally, for those clients who have progressions of degenerating physiological function, their bodies are expressing their symptoms in more classic medical ways allowing for clearer and more appropriate diagnosis and treatment. And, for those whose bodies have held sub-clinical infections, many for multiple decades, they are responding so fast that I am in true amazement.

My latest premise about human aging is that the vagus nerves, for many possible reasons, cedes the functioning of the digestive system to the enteric nervous system which is probably overseen by the celiac plexus. The ceding of this responsibility is proposed to be the result of the need for the organism as a whole to concentrate its efforts toward running of the heart/lung complex and its contributions to our ability to speak.

The progression of cardiovascular disease is an exceedingly subtle one until, it isn't. Let's be clear, our bodies are not that different from how we organize our lives. We prioritize and distribute our energies as the obvious needs present themselves, disregarding what we can and delegating to others what we must.

Consider this analogy: Life gets hectic in the family, more money is needed to make ends meet and one or both parents take on a second job to financially keep up with the expanding needs, wants and desires of their children. As a result, one or more of the children is assigned the cooking responsibilities or even does the shopping, planning, clean-up and taking out the trash to accommodate this loss of parental skill and supervision. Most everything gets done but without the finesse, organization or thoroughness of an adult. It's a crude analogy but, in the ballpark for our purposes.

So it is when our autonomic nervous system is evolutionarily focused on the higher priority of getting the next breath and pumping freshly oxygenated blood, digestion becomes a secondary priority. Thus, without the brain's monitoring the Gastrointestinal tract, digestion, assimilation of nutrients and waste removal all happens, but with less coordination and efficiency.

New study links soft drinks and other sugary beverages with depression in older adults.

"Have a Coke and a smile"? How about "Have a Coke and a Paxil"?

Coke and the makers of other soft drinks and sugary beverages may have to rethink their slogans if the findings of a recent National Institutes of Health study hold up. Researchers at the NIH have linked the consumption of sweetened beverages to depression in older adults, according to CBS News.

(Oops ... there goes "Open happiness," too.)

"It's not fair!" " "You're not the boss of me." "She hit me!" "He started it." Fights between siblings -- from toy-snatching to clandestine whacks to being banished from the bedroom -- are so common they're often dismissed as simply part of growing up. Yet a new study from researchers at the University of New Hampshire finds that sibling aggression is associated with significantly worse mental health in children and adolescents. In some cases, effects of sibling aggression on mental health were the same as those of peer aggression.

"Even kids who reported just one instance had more mental health distress," says Corinna Jenkins Tucker, associate professor of family studies at UNH and lead author of the research, published in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics. "Our study shows that sibling aggression is not benign for children and adolescents, regardless of how severe or frequent."

Breaking news out of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is something the medical profession - and Big Pharma - probably do not want parents in the USA to hear or know. Children who have been fully vaccinated against measles are coming down with, you guessed it, measles! How can that be, when vaccinations are supposed to 'immunize' children against the very diseases for which they get the toxic 'jabs'?

Measles is not the only vaccine slipup; whooping cough has been disproving vaccine 'science' for quite a while now. Natural News blew the whistle on that in their article "Vaccine failure admitted: Whooping cough outbreaks higher among children already vaccinated"^[1] Polio has been caused by the very vaccine to prevent it. Back in August of 2009 Associated Press London news service reported, "Polio is spreading in Nigeria and health officials say in some cases it's caused by the vaccine used to fight the paralyzing disease."^[2]

Truly, something is amiss within the supposed science of vaccinology, especially if the only logic behind vaccines and vaccinations is the rabid belief that vaccines provide immunity from disease.

In the June 15, 2013 Pakistani Dawn.com report^[3] parents are distraught with disbelief as to why their children are contracting the very disease for which some children have had vaccinations more than once, and from a very early age.

We are creatures of habit. Lets face it. We buy our snacks in fancy packages, and enjoy the carefully engineered delicious food, without thinking about it. Perhaps it is time to start connecting some dots.

In 1996, genetically modified (GM) crops entered human food and animal feed in increasing amounts after being commercially released into USA fields. The main products were corn and soy. In addition to those modified crops, and many others since then, GM mosquitoes have also been introduced into the ecosystem, without the consent of the people.

A recent study published in the peer reviewed Journal of Organic Systems demonstrated that Pigs fed a GMO diet showed a higher rate of severe stomach inflammation than pigs fed a comparable non GMO diet.This finding was a result of a long-term toxicology study on pigs that were fed a combination of soy and GM maize (both genetically modified). Dr. Judy Carman, from the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Australia led the study.

The significance of this 23 week study is that it reveals biological evidence linking GMO crops to significant harm. It showed that there was a 267% increase in stomach inflammation compared to the non GMO diets for the participating pigs. Surprisingly, males had an even higher increase (400%). 168 young pigs were involved in this study.

Turmeric is one the most thoroughly researched plants in existence today. Its medicinal properties and components (primarily curcumin) have been the subject of over 5600 peer-reviewed and published biomedical studies. In fact, our five-year long research project on this sacred plant has revealed over 600 potential preventive and therapeutic applications, as well as 175 distinct beneficial physiological effects. This entire database of 1,585 ncbi-hyperlinked turmeric abstracts can be downloaded as a PDF at our Downloadable Turmeric Document page, and acquired either as a retail item or with 200 GMI-tokens, for those of you who are already are members and receive them automatically each month.

Given the sheer density of research performed on this remarkable spice, it is no wonder that a growing number of studies have concluded that it compares favorably to a variety of conventional medications, including:

• Lipitor/Atorvastatin(cholesterol medication): A 2008 study published in the journal Drugs in R & D found that a standardized preparation of curcuminoids from Turmeric compared favorably to the drug atorvastatin (trade name Lipitor) on endothelial dysfunction, the underlying pathology of the blood vessels that drives atherosclerosis, in association with reductions in inflammation and oxidative stress in type 2 diabetic patients. [i] [For addition curcumin and 'high cholesterol' research - 8 abstracts]
• Corticosteroids (steroid medications): A 1999 study published in the journal Phytotherapy Research found that the primary polyphenol in turmeric, the saffron colored pigment known as curcumin, compared favorably to steroids in the management of chronic anterior uveitis, an inflammatory eye disease.[ii] A 2008 study published in Critical Care Medicine found that curcumin compared favorably to the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone in the animal model as an alternative therapy for protecting lung transplantation-associated injury by down-regulating inflammatory genes.[iii] An earlier 2003 study published in Cancer Letters found the same drug also compared favorably to dexamethasone in a lung ischaemia-repurfusion injury model.[iv] [for additional curcumin and inflammation research - 52 abstracts]
• Prozac/Fluoxetine & Imipramine (antidepressants): A 2011 study published in the journal Acta Poloniae Pharmaceutica found that curcumin compared favorably to both drugs in reducing depressive behavior in an animal model.[v] [for additional curcumin and depression research - 5 abstracts]
• Aspirin (blood thinner): A 1986 in vitro and ex vivo study published in the journal Arzneimittelforschung found that curcumin has anti-platelet and prostacyclin modulating effects compared to aspirin, indicating it may have value in patients prone to vascular thrombosis and requiring anti-arthritis therapy.[vi] [for additional curcumin and anti-platelet research]
• Anti-inflammatory Drugs: A 2004 study published in the journal Oncogene found that curcumin (as well as resveratrol) were effective alternatives to the drugs aspirin, ibuprofen, sulindac, phenylbutazone, naproxen, indomethacin, diclofenac, dexamethasone, celecoxib, and tamoxifen in exerting anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activity against tumor cells.[vii] [for additional curcumin and anti-proliferative research - 15 abstracts]
• Oxaliplatin (chemotherapy drug): A 2007 study published in the International Journal of Cancer found that curcumin compares favorably with oxaliplatin as an antiproliferative agenet in colorectal cell lines.[viii] [for additional curcumin and colorectal cancer research - 52 abstracts]
• Metformin (diabetes drug): A 2009 study published in the journal Biochemitry and Biophysical Research Community explored how curcumin might be valuable in treating diabetes, finding that it activates AMPK (which increases glucose uptake) and suppresses gluconeogenic gene expression (which suppresses glucose production in the liver) in hepatoma cells. Interestingly, they found curcumin to be 500 times to 100,000 times (in the form known as tetrahydrocurcuminoids(THC)) more potent than metformin in activating AMPK and its downstream target acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC). [ix]