Every July 4 since our nation declared independence in 1776, Americans have celebrated this truth:

...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." 1

The Declaration of Independence rejected unjust laws imposed by a privileged ruling class. The guiding principles of the Declaration of Independence were codified into the Bill of Rights to limit the power of government and protect our unalienable natural rights.

The increasingly globalized industrial food system that transnational agribusiness promotes is not feeding the world and is responsible for some of the planet's most pressing political, social and environmental crises. Localised, traditional methods of food production have given way to globalised supply chains dominated by transnational companies policies and actions which have resulted in the destruction of habitat and livelihoods and the imposition of corporate-controlled, chemical-intensive (monocrop) agriculture that weds farmers and regions to a wholly exploitative system of neoliberal globalisation.

Whether it involves the undermining or destruction of what were once largely self-sufficient agrarian economies in Africa or the devastating impacts of soy cultivation in Argentina or palm oil production in Indonesia, transnational agribusiness and global capitalism cannot be greenwashed.

In their rush to readily promote neoliberal dogma and corporate PR, many take as given that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be custodians of natural assets. There is the premise that water, seeds, land, food, soil and agriculture should be handed over to powerful, corrupt transnational corporations to milk for profit, under the pretense these entities are somehow serving the needs of humanity.

These natural assets ('the commons') belong to everyone and any stewardship should be carried out in the common interest by local people assisted by public institutions and governments acting on their behalf, not by private transnational corporations driven by self-interest and the maximization of profit by any means possible.

A three-fold jump since 1975 in the percentage of adults worldwide who are obese has been driven mainly by a shift in diet and lack of exercise, but genes do play a role as well, according a large-scale study published Thursday.

For people genetically predisposed to a wider girth, these unhealthy lifestyles compounded the problem, resulting in an even higher rate of weight gain, researchers reported in The BMJ, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

The standard measure for obesity, the Body-Mass Index (BMI), is calculated on the basis of weight and height.

People hoping to lose weight with exercise often wind up being their own worst enemies, according to the latest, large-scale study of workouts, weight loss and their frustrating interaction. The study, which carefully tracked how much people ate and moved after starting to exercise, found that many of them failed to lose or even gained weight while exercising, because they also reflexively changed their lives in other, subtle ways. But a few people in the study did drop pounds, and their success could have lessons for the rest of us.

In a just and cogent universe, of course, exercise would make us thin. Physical activity consumes calories, and if we burn calories without replacing them or reducing our overall energy expenditure, we enter negative energy balance. In that condition, we utilize our internal energy stores, which most of us would call our flab, and shed weight.

But human metabolisms are not always just and cogent, and multiple past studies have shown that most men and women who begin new exercise routines drop only about 30 percent or 40 percent as much weight as would be expected, given how many additional calories they are expending with exercise.

Current guidelines recommend lowering cholesterol for heart disease risk reduction. New findings indicate that if cholesterol dips too low, it may boost the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, according to researchers.

Over a period of nine years, a Penn State-led study examined the relationship between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol — LDL, commonly known as "bad" cholesterol — and hemorrhagic stroke. This type of stroke occurs when a blood vessel bursts in the brain.

The researchers found that participants with LDL cholesterol levels below 70 mg/dL had a higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke.

There's a lot to be said for veganism. For the thinking eater, it gets around a whole bunch of ethical grey areas. If you care about what you put in your mouth, it is probably the most black and white way to approach the whole meat thing. There are no grey areas about so-called "ethical" meat, or questions over exactly how "free range" are the hens when there are 10,000 chickens to the ­hectare. Not eating meat, not buying products that come from animals — surely that means you're doing better not only for those animals directly affected, but also the environment, and your health? But while veganism is on the rise in Western nations, it's still far from mainstream. Why, then, is it so hard to convince people of its worth if it really is a win all round? The vegan philosophy is, at its heart, quite often about ­reducing suffering. By not eating ­animals, you — by definition — reduce suffering. It's a lovely idea. And I wish it were that simple.

Let's start with peas. Collydean (not its real name, but a real farm) is a 2700ha mixed farm in northern Tasmania. They grow beef cattle, some sheep, do agroforestry, have barley and some years grow peas. A lot of peas: about 400 tonnes a season. And to protect the peas, they have some wildlife fences, but also have to shoot a lot of ­animals. When I was there, they had a licence to kill about 150 deer. They routinely kill about 800-1000 ­possums and 500 wallabies every year, along with a few ducks. (To its credit, Collydean only invites hunters onto its farm who will use the animals they kill — for human food, or for pet food — and not leave them in the paddock, as most ­animals killed for crop protection are.) So, more than 1500 animals die each year to grow about 75ha of peas for our freezers. That's not 1500 rodents, which also die, and which some may see as collateral damage. That's mostly warm-blooded animals of the cute kind, with a few birds thrown in.

Price hikes on prescription drugs are surging in 2019, despite vows from lawmakers and the Trump administration to rein in pharmaceutical costs.

So far in 2019, more than 3,400 drugs have boosted their prices, a 17% increase compared with the roughly 2,900 drug price increases at the same time in 2018, according to a new analysis by Rx Savings Solutions, a consultant to health plans and employers.

The average price hike for those 3,400 drugs stands at 10.5%, or about 5 times the rate of inflation, the study found. About 41 drugs have boosted their prices by more than 100%, including one version of the antidepressant fluoxetine -- also known as Prozac -- whose cost has surged 879%, Rx Savings Solutions said.

An article appeared in this week's New York Times, "My Son Got Lyme Disease. He's Totally Fine. Horror stories about lingering Lyme disease proliferate, but the illness is easily treated." While I am delighted that author Apoorva Mandavilli's son had a good outcome, I feel a need to respond to aspects of the story that I, a Board Certified Infectious Diseases physician who lives in a Lyme endemic area and has had Lyme, found misleading and disturbing.

Neither the author's experience — nor that of the pediatrician she quotes as "never had a complication from Lyme" — matches mine. Mandavilli says, "many people view Lyme — wrongly — as a debilitating, chronic illness instead of what it is: An easily treated infection with no long-term consequences for children, or even the vast majority of adults."

I understand that there are a spectrum of patients with Lyme.

Austria's lower house of parliament passed a bill on Tuesday banning all uses of the weedkiller glyphosate, the first time a European Union country has taken such strong action against the chemical over concerns that it can cause cancer.

Other EU countries have passed partial bans of glyphosate, developed by Bayer-owned Monsanto, although France has lowered its ambitions on a ban, highlighting its usefulness in agriculture. Austria has embraced organic farming more than other EU member state.

"The scientific evidence of the plant poison's carcinogenic effect is increasing. It is our responsibility to ban this poison from our environment," the leader of Austria's Social Democrats, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, said in a statement.

After studies have confirmed that vitamin A, converted from beta carotene, is very low in genetically modified golden rice, new evidence shows that the rice is also unable to hold the biochemical for long after harvest.

Unless preserved in refrigerated condition in vacuum packaging as paddy, golden rice can lose up to 84 per cent of its beta carotene in six months, according to a new Indian government research.

The degradation of beta carotene level gets faster with processing and is the highest in polished golden rice, said the research released two months ago in the British journal Food Chemistry.