"[Depleted uranium tipped missiles] fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way... I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people." ~ Marion Falk, chemical physicist (retd), Lawrence Livermore Lab, California, USA

In the first 24 hours of the Libyan attack, US B-2s dropped forty-five 2,000-pound bombs. These massive bombs, along with the Cruise missiles launched from British and French planes and ships, all contained depleted uranium (DU) warheads.

DU is the waste product from the process of enriching uranium ore. It is used in nuclear weapons and reactors. Because it is a very heavy substance, 1.7 times denser than lead, it is highly valued by the military for its ability to punch through armored vehicles and buildings. When a weapon made with a DU tip strikes a solid object like the side of a tank, it goes straight through it, then erupts in a burning cloud of vapor. The vapor settles as dust, which is not only poisonous, but also radioactive.

A national survey of U.S. family medicine residency programs finds that most limit pharmaceutical and other industry interactions with residents while many exclude all interactions. The results, published in the May issue of Academic Medicine, suggest a major shift away from acceptance of food, gifts, samples, and industry-supported events. The survey was a joint effort between Georgetown University Medical Center and the American Medical Student Association (AMSA).

There are more than 400 accredited family medicine residency programs in the country . responsible for training family medicine physicians. Previous studies suggest that almost all physicians-in-training (medical students and residents) have interacted in some way with pharmaceutical, medical device or biotechnology companies. Research shows that interactions -- meeting with representatives; accepting gifts, food, and samples; and sponsored talks -- between industry and trainees, as they develop their practice habits, -- - affect prescribing patterns.

"There isn't any evidence that pharmaceutical representatives provide objective information to trainees," says Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., a professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center. "To the contrary, studies have shown that the information they provide favors targeted drugs and that many assertions reps make are inconsistent with FDA-approved prescribing information."

Administration spokespeople continuously claim "no threat" from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. Perhaps we should all whistle "Don't worry, be happy" in unison. A thorough review of the science, however, begs a second opinion.

That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away isn't as comforting as it seems. The Japanese reactors hold about 1,000 times more radiation than the bombs dropped over Hiroshima.(1) Every day, the jet stream carries pollution from Asian smoke stacks and dust from the Gobi Desert to our West Coast, contributing 10 to 60 percent of the total pollution breathed by Californians, depending on the time of year. Mercury is probably the second most toxic substance known after plutonium. Half the mercury in the atmosphere over the entire US originates in China. It, too, is 5,000 miles away. A week after a nuclear weapons test in China, iodine 131 could be detected in the thyroid glands of deer in Colorado, although it could not be detected in the air or in nearby vegetation.(2)

The idea that a threshold exists or there is a safe level of radiation for human exposure began unraveling in the 1950s when research showed one pelvic x-ray in a pregnant woman could double the rate of childhood leukemia in an exposed baby.(3) Furthermore, the risk was ten times higher if it occurred in the first three months of pregnancy than near the end. This became the stepping-stone to the understanding that the timing of exposure was even more critical than the dose. The earlier in embryonic development it occurred, the greater the risk.

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) expressed concern over recent reports that radioactivity from the ongoing Fukushima accident is present in the Japanese food supply. While all food contains radionuclides, whether from natural sources, nuclear testing or otherwise, the increased levels found in Japanese spinach and milk pose health risks to the population. PSR also expressed alarm over the level of misinformation circulating in press reports about the degree to which radiation exposure can be considered "safe."

According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual's risk for the development of cancer.

"There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period," said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water."

Summertime sees the greatest number of patients hospitalized for a common and sometimes painful digestive problem called diverticulitis, a new study finds.

The results are puzzling researchers already stumped by this disease.

"It's been a mystery for a number of years," said study author Dr. Rocco Ricciardi, adding that nobody knows for sure what triggers the problem.

In diverticulitis, tiny pouches bulge out from the lower intestine and become inflamed, which can cause fever and stomachache.

Nearly 300,000 people are hospitalized for it every year in the U.S.

Ricciardi, a colon surgeon at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, had noticed that more of his patients seemed to have flare-ups during the summer.

Gender-bending chemicals found in non-stick pans and food packaging are linked to early menopause, scientists say.

A major study has shown that women with the highest levels of the substances in their bodies go through 'the change' sooner than women with low levels.

PFCs, or perfluorocarbons, are found throughout the home.

They are breathed in via dust or vapour, or eaten in food, and have been linked to thyroid cancer, immune system problems and heart disease.

Many researchers believe they also act as hormone disrupters in the body.

They repel water and fat, and so have been used to make non-stick cookware, greaseproof food packaging and stain-resistant sprays for clothes and carpets.

The company 3M stopped using the chemicals in Scotchgard in 2002 due to health concerns. DuPont, manufacturer of Teflon, has agreed to phase them out by 2015.

The latest study looked at levels of PFCs in blood samples from 26,000 U.S. women.

The researchers, from West Virginia University, found levels were highest in women aged over 42 who had gone through the menopause.

Women in this age group with high levels of PFCs also had 'significantly lower' concentration of the female hormone oestrogen, the scientists report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Recently a report was issued by the Department of Health which warned that the outbreak of a new influenza epidemic was one of the greatest threats facing the UK and it would be difficult to stop it as vaccines would take months to develop.

It also suspected that the half of the population was under the danger of developing symptoms of the disease which would flood the hospitals with patients costing the economy around £28billion.

Authorities have issued an official advice in the form of the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011 and officials are taking it seriously as around one million people died because of H1N1 virus in 2009.

When my husband and I set out to find a nursery school for our daughter, Faith, nearly ten years ago we took the decision seriously. I looked at large parent-run cooperatives and visited small home-based operations. Jeff studied the pink towers and chiming bells at the Montessori school on the hill and considered the wonder balls and wooden fairies at the Waldorf school in the valley. In the end, we chose a nursery school that operated out of a community center close to home. There was a frog pond out front and a play structure out back. The trees were full of chickadees and nuthatches. We had weighed many considerations in the decision-making process, and we all, Faith included, were happy about it.

That is, until I discovered that, like many of its kind, the school's beloved play structure - with its wooden gangway, turrets, and tunnels  - was made out of pressure-treated lumber, which, at the time, contained arsenic, a carcinogen. A bladder carcinogen, in fact. I am a bladder cancer survivor. I am familiar with this particular disease and all the ongoing medical surveillance it requires. So, after a lot of research and discussion, we eventually decided to move our daughter to a different nursery school. The risk of doing nothing just seemed too high.

Seven years later, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final risk assessment for children who regularly contact wood impregnated with chromated copper arsenate. The conclusion: children who play frequently on pressure-treated play sets and decks (we had one of those, too) experience, over their lifetimes, elevated cancer risks. Ergo, our precautionary decision as parents to dis-enroll our daughter had been a wise one. And yet, because the EPA stopped short of recalling pre-existing play structures and decks when it outlawed arsenic-treated lumber for residential use in 2004, the old play structure at our old nursery school still stands.

There is a jingle that goes: "The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead!"

Bread has been called the "staff of life." Unfortunately these days most folks consume grain in its refined state and this staple contains little to no nutritive properties and cannot support animal or human life.

Wheat is the key ingredient in the American diet. But after being milled, it is seldom utilized in its whole form with its components intact. Invariably, when we eat wheat, we get it in the form of bread, pies, cakes, cookies, biscuits, spaghetti, cream of wheat, cereals, and other forms that have been treated, heated, fractioned, and fragmented until it is next to impossible to recognize it for what it was originally.

A refined grain, or its product, is made by processing a natural, whole grain so that some or most of the nutrients are lost. Almost all grain products have been refined in some way or another.

White rice, cream of wheat, cookies, and bowls of snap-crackle-and-pop each morning are all examples of refined grain products.

Tel Aviv University researcher warns that it isn't 'all in the genes'.

When the Human Genome Project ended a decade ago, scientists thought that they'd closed the lid on all that's to be known about our genes. But what they really did was open a Pandora's Box, says theoretical evolutionary biologist Prof. Eva Jablonka of Tel Aviv University's Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas.

After sifting through hundreds of scientific studies concerned with epigenetics, Prof. Jablonka concludes that some of the effects of stress, cancer, and other chronic diseases we suffer from may be passed on to our offspring through deep and complicated underlying cellular mechanisms that we are just now beginning to understand.


Prof. Jablonka will discuss her findings at an epigenetics conference in North Carolina later this month.

The invisible threat

Epigenetic research suggests that the effects of stress and environmental pollution can be passed on to future generations without any obvious change or mutation in our DNA. The problem, Prof. Jablonka points out, is that we have no idea of the extent these effects will have on the human genome of the future.

"I am a story teller. I read a lot of information and develop theories about evolution. For the last 25 years, before it became a fad, I was interested in the transmission of information not dependent on DNA variations," Dr. Jablonka says. "Epigenetic inheritance is information about us that is not explicitly encoded in our genes. Two individuals may have identical genes, but the genes present very different characteristics. They can be genetically identical but different epigenetically."