Consumer Beware: the next generation of biotech crops focus directly on you. Unlike most of GM crops currently on the market, which are genetically altered to be herbicide and pesticide resistant, the new generation of GM crops are designed to express alleged nutritional benefits. Focusing on soybean oil - the fastest way to reach the broadest number of consumers because of its ubiquitous presence in many foods - biotech companies are mutating seeds used to produce oil designed to express various types of "nutritional" benefits.

Since we do not yet know whether genetically modified crops and food products made from them are safe, and in fact studies have suggested otherwise, it is hard to swallow and digest (no pun intended) the news that GM oils are designed to express nutritional benefits. How nutritious can food be if it has, as is suggested by studies, adverse health impacts?

But that is not stopping biotech companies from R&D. And so the oil wars have officially begun.

There was not even one death caused by a vitamin supplement in 2010, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System.

The new 203-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published online [pdf], shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.

Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or dietary mineral supplement.

1. In 1868, 1873, and 1881 smallpox vaccinations in the USA led to an alarming spread of leprosy as reported to the Board of Health.
2. In 1883 A Vaccine Disaster Record was published that documented over 400 deaths from vaccination.
3. In 1900 the Rockefeller and JP Morgan syndicate purchased Encyclopedia Britannica and had all derogatory information and references about vaccinations removed from it.
4. In 1917 during World War I, U.S. soldiers vaccinated before shipping over to Europe were dropping dead from a strange syndrome that seemed to be attacking only young people.
5. In 1928 [August 27] the League of Nations [forerunner to the United Nations] published a report on encephalitis (brain inflammation) that stated, "The post-vaccinal encephalitis with which we are dealing has become a problem of itself... a new, or at least previously unsuspected or unrecognized risk attaches to vaccination..."
6. U.S. Secretary of War, Henry L Simpson, issued a report in 1942 that said, "Recent Army experience with yellow fever vaccine resulted in 28,505 cases of hepatitis with 62 deaths."
7. The Willowbrook School vaccine experiment lasted from the 1950s until 1972 during which time mentally disabled children were deliberately infected with hepatitis in an effort to find a vaccine.
8. In 1957 The New York Times reported that close to 50 percent of polio cases that occurred in children between 5 and14 years of age, occurred in children vaccinated against polio.
9. In 1972 before a Senate subcommittee hearing, polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk testified that nearly all polio outbreaks since 1961 resulted from or were caused by the oral polio vaccine.
10. The Lancet reported in 1976 that vaccines do not adequately protect against whooping cough and close to one-third of notified cases were fully vaccinated.
11. The Lancet reported in 1977 that there is no protection demonstrated from whooping cough vaccine in infants.
12. Science reported in 1977 that as many as 26 percent of children receiving the rubella vaccination develop arthritis.
13. In 1984 the Archives of Disease in Childhood, Vol.59, No.2, pp.162-65 reported, "Since the decline of pertussis immunisation, [sic] hospital admission and death rates from whooping cough have fallen unexpectedly... The severity of attacks and the complication rates in children admitted to hospital were virtually unchanged."
14. 1986 U.S. Vaccine Injury Compensation Act passed by Congress.
15. 1988 U.S. Vaccine Injury Compensation Program funded.
16. The Lancet reported in 1994 that asthma is five times more common in vaccinated children than in non-vaccinated children.
17. The Merck Manual in 1996 publishes that "Autoimmune diseases may be initiated by the encephalitis that can follow rabies vaccination in which an autoimmune cross-reaction probably is initiated by animal brain tissue in the vaccine".
18. The Lancet publishes in 1999 that there were 15,229 cases of diphtheria in Russia, and that most children were fully vaccinated.
19. According to the NIH, a Japanese study in 2002, "Development of Vaccination Policy in Japan," documents the number of Japanese children developing autism rose and fell in direct proportion to the number of children vaccinated each year.

20. In 2006 polio was reported on the rise in Nigeria despite an almost universal rate of vaccination in that country.

With every form of industry slashing costs and utilizing potentially dangerous new manufacturing technologies in an attempt to monetize and reduce workload, many of these companies are putting your health at risk. Such is the case with the clothing industry according to new research, which asks the question as to whether or not your clothes may be making you sick.

Some corporations have begun embedding something known as antimicrobial compounds into a number of common products including toothpaste, hand soaps, and even items within the clothing industry. The antimicrobial compounds are added to kill germs and odors, which appears to be beneficial at first glance. The truth of the matter, however, is that scientists have found that these antimicrobial chemicals may actually be damaging your thyroid in addition to your hormonal system.

Triclosan, Nanoparticles Added to Clothing Pose Health & Environmental Risk

Furthermore, these antimicrobial compounds do not really pack a powerful anti-odor or anti-germ punch. In fact, the antimicrobials added into premium brand name clothing items are actually the same as washing with soap and water. These products are sometimes loaded with harsh antibacterial agents such as triclosan, and trichlorocarban. Silver can also be used in nanoparticle form, which are tiny particles that can cross the blood-brain barrier. Prominent health professionals have warned against products containing nanoparticles due to the fact that the technology has never been thoroughly tested for effects on human health.

These two chemicals were found to begin washing out of the clothing quickly, and within around 10 washes half of the triclosan and triclocarban washed out. What this means is that the chemicals could easily be absorbed into your skin as a result of sweating or even from water touching the antimicrobial clothing. Washed out chemicals can also negatively impact the environment after passing through water treatment plants, posing a risk to wildlife, humans, and the food supply. The Swedish Chemical Agency, where researchers conducted the tests, also warned that children could absorb the microbial compounds which could negatively impact their developing bodies.

© GreenMedInfo

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to doctors and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic."

~ Attributed to Dr. Benjamin Rush,
Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Benjamin Rush accurately foretold a grave possibility facing Americans today, namely, that the art and science of healing be restricted to a select class of allopathic physicians, who have the sole legal right to recommend and administer medicines, and whose pharmacopeia excludes - as a matter of principle - all the healing foods, vitamins and herbs which have been used safely and effectively for countless millenia in the prevention and treatment of disease.

We have entered an era where medicine no longer bears any resemblance to the art and science of healing. The doctor no longer facilitates the body's innate self-healing capabilities with time, care, good nutrition and special help from our plant allies. To the contrary, medicine has transmogrified into a business enterprise founded on the inherently nihilistic principles of pure, unbridled capitalism, with an estimated 786,000 Americans dying annually from iatrogenic or medically-caused deaths.*

Having a pet cat as a child may protect against future allergies, but a new study has found that getting a pet cat as an adult nearly doubles the risk of developing an immune reaction to it.

The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that people who already had other allergies were at a higher risk of having an allergic reaction to a new feline in the house.

"Our data support that acquiring a cat in adulthood nearly doubles the risk of developing cat sensitization," Mario Olivieri, from the University Hospital of Verona in Italy, told Rick Dewsbury of The Daily Mail Online. "Hence, cat avoidance should be considered in adults, especially in those sensitized to other allergens and reporting a history of allergic diseases."

More than 6,000 adult Europeans took part in the study, with researchers surveying them twice over a nine year period and taking blood samples. None of the participants had antibodies to cats in their blood at the beginning of the study, meaning they were not sensitized to the pet's dander.

About three percent of the study group who did not have a cat at either time of the survey became sensitized over the course of the study, compared to five percent of those who acquired a cat during the nine year period.

Four in ten of the newly sensitized people also said they had experienced allergy symptoms around animals, four times the rate seen in people without antibodies against cats. It also turned out that only people who let their cat into the bedroom became sensitized.

Mental health professionals say new diagnoses will lead to overmedication.

Anyone who's ever tried to get reimbursed by a health insurance company after seeing a psychiatrist or psychotherapist, or taking a child or teenager to one, has no doubt noticed the incomprehensible numbers that appear on the clinician's statement, perhaps preceding some slightly less imponderable phrase.

Maybe you are a 296.22 (major depressive disorder, single episode, mild) or a 300.00 (anxiety disorder NOS - not otherwise specified). Hopefully, you are not a 301.83 (borderline personality disorder). Your kid might be a 313.81 (oppositional defiant disorder) or, more likely, a 314.01 (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type).

Since 1952, a tome called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as the DSM, has been reducing to a few digits the psychological malady said to afflict a patient. This bible of mental health treatment, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), provides a list and description of every mental health condition known to - or invented by - psychiatry, from histrionic personality disorder (301.50) to transvestic fetishism (302.3).

Bad news for the Gulf of Mexico: a study released this week sheds new light on the toxicity of oil in aquatic environments, and shows that environmental impact studies currently in use may be inadequate. The report is to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, spearheaded by the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in collaboration with NOAA, looked into the aftermath of the 2007 Cusco Busan spill, when that tanker hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay.

The key finding involved the embryos of Pacific herring that spawn in the bay. The fish embryos absorbed the oil and then, when exposed to UV rays in sunlight, physically disintegrated. This is called phototoxicity, and has not previously been taken into account when talking about oil spills.

What began as a murmur last year about a possible ban on thousands of dietary supplements in the U.S. has reached cacophonous levels over the last few months, as the Food and Drug Administration indicated its intent to regulate "new dietary ingredients" in current and future products.

What does this mean? And, more importantly, how might it affect you and your health?

This past summer, the FDA issued a draft of guidelines for complying with the New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) notification protocols. Translation: Any company or individual wishing to sell or develop a supplement containing new ingredients would have to notify the FDA of their intent. A "new" ingredient is defined as one added after 1994, when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). If the FDA deems a new ingredient unsafe or unscientific, the entire supplement can be removed from the market.

Just. Like. That.