Many parents don't think twice about taking their children in for routine vaccinations, as they are an integral and heavily promoted part of the conventional medical system. But this decision has had life altering, and sometimes life-ending, ramifications for more children than you might expect.

Many hard core health activists are distressed that I do not promote the avoidance of all vaccines outright. Instead, I strongly urge you to invest the time to educate yourself about the potential benefits and risks of each vaccine prior to vaccination, and to make educated decisions based on what you conclude is likely to be the best course of action for your child.

While some vaccines appear to be safer than others, it's important to realize that each vaccination carries a certain amount of risk and vaccine risks can be greater for some than others due to biological and environmental factors, and the timing and types of vaccines given. The risks of vaccination may be exponentially increased when revaccination takes place after an individual has already had a previous vaccine reaction, or when multiple vaccines are administered at the same time.

Conservative estimates indicate that the 2010 BP oil disaster released over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, followed by at least 1.8 million gallons of dispersants. While the use of dispersants helped mitigate the public relations disaster by preventing the persistent formation of surface oil, as well as keeping many beaches visibly untouched, they also drove the oil deeper into the water column (and food chain) rendering a 2-dimensional problem (surface oil) into a 3-dimensional one. Additionally, research indicates that dispersants prevent the biodegradation of toxic oil components, as well as increasing dispersant absorption into fish from between 6 to 1100 fold higher levels.

Since the event, both the mainstream media and the government have acted as if the oil disappeared, and that no significant health risks remain for the millions still consuming contaminated seafood from the Gulf.*

Now, a new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that the 2010 BP Gulf oil disaster resulted in widespread contamination of Gulf Coast seafood with toxic components from crude oil.¹ In fact, levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in shrimp were found to exceed the FDA's established thresholds for allowable levels [levels of concern (LOCs)] for pregnant women in up to 53% of Gulf shrimp sampled.

PAHs are well-known carcinogens and developmental toxicants, which is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is obligated to set risk criteria and thresholds for allowable levels of exposure to them.**

In the new study the authors set out to evaluate the degree to which the FDA's procedures for determining the safety of Gulf seafood after the BP disaster reflect the current risk assessment guidelines and practices, as produced by other authoritative entities, including the National Research Council (NRC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California EPA. The authors focused on cancer risk associated with shellfish consumption, looking at whether or not the FDA's guidelines protect the most vulnerable populations, e.g. pregnant women, infants.

Cristina Fernandez, the President of Argentina, had her thyroid removed on January 4 only to find out the gland wasn't cancerous after all. Although her supporters whooped with joy at this news, doctors can't put it back, and Fernandez will be on thyroid meds for life.(1) Were her doctors incompetent or did they act appropriately? As that debate rages on over the internet, the Fernandez case has also led to widespread discussion of why thyroid cancer incidence, especially among women, has dramatically increased over the last 30 years.

An Epidemic of Thyroid Cancer

According to the National Cancer Institute, incidences of thyroid cancer have nearly doubled since the early 1970s. Thyroid cancer now affects about 11 people per 100,000 in the United States. In 2011, 56,460 new cases were diagnosed. In January 2008, there were 458,403 Americans alive who had a history of thyroid cancer, of which 100,952 were men and 357,451 women. In 2011, 56,460 new cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed and 1,740 people died.(2, 3)

Doctors do not know why the numbers of thyroid cancer cases are increasing though some blame increased overweight and obesity, radiation exposure, and diets low in fruits and vegetables.

The American Medical Association called for mandatory pre-market safety testing of genetically engineered foods as part of a revised policy voted on at the AMA's meeting in Chicago Tuesday.

Currently biotech companies are simply encouraged to engage in a voluntary safety consultation with the Food and Drug Administration before releasing a product onto the market.

Some activists concerned about foods made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, had hoped the association would have gone so far as to support mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. But some still view the policy change as a major breakthrough.

"We applaud the AMA for taking the lead to help ensure a safe and adequate food supply," said Anne Dietrich of the Truth In Labeling Campaign, which advocates labeling of genetically engineered foods. When Monsanto Co., the world's largest biotech seed company, testified Sunday at the AMA committee hearing on the policy, its representative did not raise any objections to the mandatory safety assessment provision.

In this interview, Dr. Andrew Wakefield shares his personal and professional insights into a number of topics, from the gut-brain connection so often seen in autistic children, to the safety of a number of childhood vaccines.

But most importantly, he sets the record straight on the harsh criticism he's endured as the author of one of the most controversial vaccine-causing-autism studies ever done.

In addition to his hotly contested MMR study, published in the journal Lancet in 1998, he has published about 130-140 peer-reviewed papers looking at the mechanism and cause of inflammatory bowel disease, and has extensively investigated the brain-bowel connection in the context of children with developmental disorders such as autism.

Link to Transcript

Friday June 22 (HealthDay News) -- Sleep seems to improve the motor function of people with Parkinson's disease, researchers have found.
This "sleep benefit" occurs for some patients even though they are without their medication while sleeping, the study authors said. However, how sleep helps patients' motor function remains unclear, and not all Parkinson's patients experience this improvement, according to the report, published in the June issue of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease.

"If the subjective experience of sleep benefit is proven to be related to an objective improvement in motor function, this could have considerable clinical benefits," the study's lead investigator Dr. Sebastiaan Overeem, of the department of neurology, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands, said in a journal news release.

There's mercury in the baby formula. Cabbages are sprayed with formaldehyde. Gelatin capsules for pills, tens of millions of them, are laced with chromium. Used cooking oil is scooped out of gutters for recycling, right along with the sewage.

Accounts of dubious or unsafe food in China are as mesmerizing as they are disturbing - "artificial green peas," grilled kebabs made from cat meat, contaminated chives, chlorine showing up in soft drinks.

There have been stories of imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings, ink and paraffin being used to dress up cheap noodles, and pork buns so loaded with bacteria that they glow in the dark.

A new investigation by the Chinese magazine Caixin has found that "these publicized food safety scandals represent only a fraction of unsafe food production practices. Hundreds of chemical food additives are pumped into products that Chinese people consume every day."

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday that Chinese authorities have discovered 15,000 cases of substandard food so far this year while shutting down 5,700 unlicensed food businesses.

Things are so bad that a new iPhone app was recently launched to track food scandals nationwide. The app, which sends out daily updates on the latest outrages, was reportedly downloaded more than 200,000 times in the first week.

People who are allergic to soy may also react to eggs, dairy and flesh foods. This is usually chalked up to multiple allergies, but the cause might well be soy residues from the soy-based chows fed to poultry, cows, sheep and fish. Since 2005, when The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food was published, many readers have shared stories of allergic reactions to eggs, dairy and meat from soy-fed animals. Not a lot of science supports this just yet, but four studies indicate phytoestrogens end up in egg yolks, and one shows their presence in chicken liver, heart, kidney and muscle meat.


In a 2001 article in Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry,¹ researchers from the Food Research and Development Laboratories of the Honen Corporation, of Shizuoka, Japan, fed hens a diet containing a high concentration of soy isoflavones, then measured the isoflavones in plasma and egg yolk. Over an 18-day period, the concentration of isoflavones peaked on the 12th day with isoflavone levels in the egg yolk at 65.29 ug/100 g. This value remained constant throughout the rest of the experiment. The researchers announced a lowering of cholesterol in the egg yolk on day three, the point at which the isoflavone concentration in the yolk jumped up, but were disappointed to find the cholesterol returned to the basal level soon after. With the soy industry champing at the bit at the prospect of selling high isoflavone chicken feeds so hens could produce low cholesterol eggs, this was not good news. However, all was not lost, given the findings do support a profitable future of selling high-isoflavone eggs to health-conscious consumers who perceive soy as a miracle food for easing menopause and preventing heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and other ills.

People are risking their health by working on smartphones, tablets and laptops after they have left the office, according to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

It says people have become "screen slaves" and are often working while commuting or after they get home.

The society said poor posture in these environments could lead to back and neck pain.

Unions said people needed to learn to switch off their devices.

An online survey, of 2,010 office workers by the Society found that nearly two-thirds of those questioned continued working outside office hours.

The organisation said people were topping up their working day with more than two hours of extra screentime, on average, every day.

The data suggested that having too much work and easing pressure during the day were the two main reasons for the extra workload.

One of the most vexing problems that confronted surgeons after they completed the first successful human organ transplant, in 1954, was: Where would they get more organs? Medical researchers have since figured out how to transplant hearts, eyes and even entire faces. But half a century later, they still struggle to keep up with the demand for parts. For example, in the U.S., every year 1,400 people die awaiting livers and 4,500 more awaiting kidneys.

Part of the problem, of course, is that people want to hang on to the organs they have, both in life and death. But difficulties arise even with available organs. Because the human immune system is extraordinarily picky, the person at the top of the wait list may lose out to someone who's a lower priority but a better immunological match. Transplant patients usually have to take debilitating immunosuppressant drugs. And even then, patients may reject the organ or die from opportunistic infections.

The body regularly probes proteins on cells' surfaces to determine whether the cells belong or are foreign, and therefore dangerous. Three such proteins must match for blood donations.

Doctors now pair organs with patients using a system that matches at least six protein variables, but even that isn't enough to forgo immunosuppressant drugs. Now scientists are exploring several methods to trick the body's immune system into accepting artificial and harvested donor organs.