Russell Brand has not used drugs for 10 years. He has a job, a house, a cat, good friends. But temptation is never far away. He wants to help other addicts, but first he wants us to feel compassion for those affected.

The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received "an inconvenient truth" from a beautiful woman. It wasn't about climate change - I'm not that ecologically switched on - she told me she was pregnant and it wasn't mine.

I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car as an external conduit for the surging melancholy, and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills, the narrow lanes and tight bends were a material echo of the synaptic tangle where my thoughts stalled and jammed.

Morrissey, as ever, conducted a symphony, within and without and the tidal misery burgeoned. I am becoming possessed. The part of me that experienced the negative data, the self, is becoming overwhelmed, I can no longer see where I end and the pain begins. So now I have a choice.

An important new manuscript accepted for publication in the journal Food Chemistry disproves the widely held notion that GMO crops are 'substantially equivalent' to their traditional counterparts; a notion which forms the basis for national and international agencies - including the U.S. FDA, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization - declaring genetically modified foods to be safe without having performed adequate health risk assessments.

The new manuscript titled, "Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans,"^[i] was submitted by a team of researchers from Norway and the United Kingdom who explored the compositional differences of 31 soybean batches from Iowa, USA, which consisted of three different types:

1. Genetically modified, glyphosate-tolerant soy (GM-soy);
2. Unmodified soy cultivated using a conventional "chemical" cultivation regime;
3. Unmodified soy cultivated using an organic cultivation regime.

Their analysis revealed the following discoveries:

• "Organic soybeans showed the healthiest nutritional profile with more sugars, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose, significantly more total protein, zinc and less fibre than both conventional and GM-soy."
• "Organic soybeans also contained less total saturated fat and total omega-6 fatty acids than both conventional and GM-soy."
• "GM-soy contained high residues of glyphosate and AMPA (mean 3.3 and 5.7mg/kg, respectively). Conventional and organic soybean batches contained none of these agrochemicals."

Big pharma uses celebrities and other sneaky ways to sell diseases that may not exist.

Most of us have our guard up when it comes to direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We know the butterflies, sunsets and puppies in the TV ads are designed to distract us from terms like "blood clot," "heart attack," "stroke," "seizure," "life-threatening allergic reaction" and "death." We are aware that more than half the ads tell us why we don't actually want to ask our doctor about the new wonder drug.

Unbranded advertising, however, is much more insidious. Instead of selling a drug, it sells the disease driving the drug sales and sometimes doesn't mention the drug at all.

Unbranded advertising often appears to be from the CDC and can even run free as a public service announcement thanks to its apparently altruistic message. The hallmark of unbranded advertising is it calls the disease it's hawking (whether depression, bipolar disorder or restless legs) "under-diagnosed," and "underreported" and cites "barriers" and "stigmas to treatment" which of course means sales. Sometimes it calls the disease a "silent killer" to scare people who think they're fine. (Before drug advertising it was the opposite: the medical establishment said you were probably fine despite how you felt.)

Fertility experts said up to 25 per cent of infertile patients are classified as having "unexplained infertility", and an expert said a possible explanation could be intolerance to gluten.

Fertility experts said up to 25 per cent of infertile patients are classified as having "unexplained infertility", and an expert said a possible explanation could be intolerance to gluten.

Colleen Francisca has always had a sweet tooth. The 32-year-old decided to start a dessert parlour in 2012.

But last year, she experienced a serious allergic reaction after eating a pastry, and was forced to re-think her love of desserts.

Ms Francisca said: "I couldn't breathe. My airway closed up on me and my face started to swell."

A series of tests diagnosed Ms Francisca as gluten-intolerant.

My name is Janet Murray, I am 57 years old. I do not even know how to put my health story into words so that the human mind can understand the pain I have lived with. I lived in Canada and had been given many courses of Cipro for various illnesses over the last 30 years. Sometime ago, I began developing a lot of strange problems that no one could diagnose. I had GI difficulties, body pain, migraines every week, severe interstitial cystitis - so severe they wanted to remove my bladder. Thankfully, they did not. I was given many diagnoses too, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia. My cognitive abilities became so impaired. I loose words and my memory is shot. I had to leave my job with the Federal Government and work at home, at my own hours. I have been extremely fatigued for the last 25 years, but I never connected the dots between my health issues and the fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others until I blew out my forearm tendon, a classic post fluoroquinolone adverse reaction. It was only then that I began to learn more about the chronic symptoms that fluoroquinolone antibiotics evoke. I had them all and more. These symptoms didn't appear all at once, and so it was difficult to identify at first, but over time, my illnesses became readily apparent and progressive to the point that it was no longer a question of if I was poisoned by a fluoroquinolone, but how badly.

Let me back up a little though and give you some more details. For years, I was fatigued and suffering from post fluoroquinolone reactions, but I didn't know it. During that time, I had a long distance relationship with the love of my life in NJ. He waited and visited me back and forth for 10 years and I visited when I was well enough. When I was finally was well enough to immigrate to the US, I he asked me to marry him and so I stayed and had two wonderful years. We are jewelry designers and did the large shows. I functioned, at very low level and had to rest always, but I was living my dream. Even functioning at such a low level, I was happy after many years of hell.

Subway announced this week that eventually it will stop using azodicarbonamide - a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe rubber - as an ingredient in its bread.

But representatives for Subway, which apparently does not use the chemical in its European or Australian markets, would not say when the company would actually effect the changes.

Although Subway claims the change was already underway, the announcement coincided with an online petition asking Subway to substitute healthier ingredients.

The petition, started by Vani Hari, an activist who has targeted other fast food companies over chemical ingredients, had more than 60,000 signatures by the time Subway responded.

Still, Subway's representatives refused to elaborate on the timeline.

A representative for Subway says the change was underway before the petition was launched, but did not immediately provide details on when it started or when it would be complete.

"The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon," Subway said in a statement, without providing further details.

Millions have been duped by the use of corporate language within the food products industry - including myself before I became better educated about what terms like 'natural' and 'organic' really mean. In the case of 'natural', the term actually means virtually nothing.

And some individuals behind the organic movement have put together a funny yet informative video exposing this reality that I recommend you checkout below, even if you're fully aware of this tactic:

When crime rates drop, politicians like to give themselves pats on the back for being "tough on crime." But a new theory explaining why violence has declined across the country since the 1990s is gaining credence, and it has nothing to do with the criminal justice system. An article in Chemical & Engineering News details the mounting data that suggests taking lead out of gas and paint has played a critical role.

Lauren K. Wolf, associate editor at C&EN, explains that violent crimes had reached an all-time high in the U.S. in the early '90s. But by the end of the decade, the homicide rate had plummeted by more than 40 percent. Multiple theories were batted around to explain the drop, from the mundane to the controversial. Was it due to an increase in police presence? Did the legalization of abortion lead to fewer unwanted babies who would grow into crime-prone adults? Recently, a new argument implicating lead exposure has gained prominence.

Slap a 'USDA Certified Organic' label on a product, and viola! It is safe, GMO-free, and healthy, right? If you are comfortable and feel safe believing that, then this article is not for you. However, if you think that somehow trusting the USDA - an agency that has proven time and time again that its sole purpose is to hand the act of producing food over to the hands of multinational agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto - with the truthful labeling of our supposedly 'organic' food is foolhardy at best, then read on.

Recently I posted "GMOs in USDA Organic Food" on Farm Wars. It is getting very little notice. Why? Because nobody wants to hear it. It tears apart the illusion of a 'safe' haven for non-GMO food. It attacks the bubble we create for ourselves, thinking that we can simply go to the store and pick up a can of 'USDA Certified Organic' food and feel safe. It makes us uncomfortable because it demands that we take responsibility for our food choices instead of relegating those choices to a government agency whose sole purpose is to subjugate and control. And we go home with our cans and jars and boxes of government-certified phony 'organic' food and feel good about ourselves that we made the right choice and have taken a stand for food safety.

Are genetically modified foods connected to the rise of food allergies and digestive disorders?

Since genetically modified foods hit the market in the 1990s, allergies have skyrocketed. Studies compiled by Jeffrey M. Smith, head of the Institute for Responsible Technology and author of Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods show that common GM ingredients - in addition to synthetic chemical food additives - may be compromising the health of ordinary people in the United States and across the world.