Ann Vileisis
AlterNetWed, 14 May 2008 09:38 UTC
The following is excerpted from Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis, copyright 2008 by the author. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington D.C.
Has it ever occurred to you just how odd it is that we know so little about what we eat? Each day we feast on cereal, bread, salad, soup, chicken, cheese, apples, ice cream, and more. Over the course of our lives, each of us has eaten thousands of different foods. We have tasted their saltiness and sweetness, crunched their crispness, chewed their fleshiness, swallowed them, and incorporated their nutriment into our bones.Yet despite this biologically intimate and everyday physical connection, most of us have little idea where our foods come from, who raised them, and what went into making them.
Gabrielle Glaser
NY TimesThu, 15 May 2008 06:35 UTC
IN the YouTube video, Liz Spikol is smiling and animated, the light glinting off her large hoop earrings. Deadpan, she holds up a diaper. It is not, she explains, a hygienic item for a giantess, but rather a prop to illustrate how much control people lose when they undergo electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, as she did 12 years ago.
In other videos and blog postings, Ms. Spikol, a 39-year-old writer in Philadelphia who has bipolar disorder, describes a period of psychosis so severe she jumped out of her mother's car and ran away like a scared dog.
In lectures across the country, Elyn Saks, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Southern California, recounts the florid visions she has experienced during her lifelong battle with schizophrenia - dancing ashtrays, houses that spoke to her - and hospitalizations where she was strapped down with leather restraints and force-fed medications.
When you turn to organic foods are you really guaranteed the pesticide free, health oriented product as declared on its package? How can you really be sure?
Firstly an organic food is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, food additives or antibiotics. Overall, what differentiates an organic food versus its conventional counterpart is how it is grown, processed and handled. Organic farmers rely on less invasive methods such as manure or compost fertilizer, crop rotation methods and also by giving animals more roaming space.
Americans depend upon sound science to ensure that consumer products are safe. If there is undue influence over this science, then the public's health may be compromised.
Are there inappropriate ties between the chemical industry and expert review panels hired by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)? The EPA is charged with the responsibility of determining safe levels for a variety of chemical compounds. A congressional committee is currently investigating.
Washington - The United States Court of Federal Claims began another hearing on Monday to decide whether a vaccine additive led thousands of children to become autistic.
The hearing is the second in a series of three in which the court is considering whether the government should pay millions of dollars to the parents of some 4,800 autistic children. In this hearing, parents are claiming that thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury, damaged their children's brains. Thimerosal was removed from all routinely administered childhood vaccines by 2001.
McMaster Children's Hospital was the scene of a small but emotional protest Monday morning over the plight of an 11-year-old boy forced by the Children's Aid Society to undergo cancer treatment.
The boy's parents were joined by about a dozen supporters who say the CAS is wrong to order the child to endure chemotherapy when he says he doesn't want it.
"I want them to leave me alone. I'm doing the right thing and taking natural medicine," the boy, whose name cannot be released because of his age, told CHCH-TV in a telephone interview.
CBSWed, 14 May 2008 15:15 UTC
Consumers Are Left To Wonder Which Genetically-Modified Foods They Might Be Eating
According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of Americans say they won't buy food that has been genetically modified. But CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that it's not that easy to avoid. While most packaged and processed foods do contain genetically modified ingredients, the labels don't have to say so.
Emotional memories of traumatic life events such as accidents, war experiences or serious illnesses are stored in a particularly robust way by the brain. This renders effective treatment very difficult. Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich have now successfully tracked down the molecular bases of these strong, very persistent memories.
[Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health] goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public.
"You're saying that public health officials have turned their back on a viable area of research largely because they're afraid of what might be found?" Attkisson asked.
Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people."
Kate Devlin
TelegraphSat, 10 May 2008 05:26 UTC
Married life is the key to happiness but having children can ruin it all, a psychologist claims.
