Health & WellnessS


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Now Independent Thinkers are Considered Diseased by Psychiatry

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Pavlin
Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people.

The new edition may include "disorders" like "oppositional defiant disorder", which includes people who have a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Some of the "symptoms" of this disorder including losing one's temper, annoying people and being "touchy".

Other "disorders" being considered include personality flaws like antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism or narcissism. There are even categories for people who binge eat and children who have temper tantrums.

Children are already over-diagnosed for allegedly being bipolar or having attention-deficit disorder (ADD), which results in their being prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs. To categorize even more childhood behaviors as psychiatric disorders will only further increase the number of children who will be needlessly prescribed antipsychotic drugs.
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Life Preserver

Being Bad at Relationships is Good for Survival

J.R. Minkel
LiveScience.com
Sat, 15 May 2010 16:25 UTC
Feeling happy and secure in our relationships is a goal many people strive for, but in times of need the emotionally insecure partners may be doing us a favor by being more alert to possible danger.

Evolution may have shaped us to consist of groups of emotionally secure and insecure individuals, researchers write in the March issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

When faced with threats to close personal relationships, people react in different ways according to their sense of whether the world is a secure place. The same reaction styles also cause people to be more or less attuned to dangers of all kinds.

Evolution would have favored a mix of these so-called attachment styles if mixed groups were more likely to survive than groups of only secure or only insecure individuals.

"Secure people have disadvantages," experimental psychologist Tsachi Ein-Dor of the New School of Psychology in Herzliya, Israel, told LiveScience. "They react slowly and then act slowly because they need to first get organized."

Comment: This article appears to be taking a scientific approach to the analysis of why some people are insecure, specifically those who are insecure in relationships. The claim that this is an evolutionary step and therefore beneficial over all is glossing over the reason that some people are insecure - as children they did not experience the proper emotional training at the hands of (usually neglectful) parents.

Insecurity of the type described in the article cannot therefore be called an evolutionary adaption to improve the chances of survival of the species. It is more likely to be an example of the downward trend of humanity and the erosion of the average human being's ability to truly know and express the more positive side of human nature and, as a result, to rear well-adjusted children.

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Cow Skull

The Very Unappetising Truth About McDonald's Chicken Meals

Tom Rawstone
The Daily Mail
Sat, 15 May 2010 07:02 UTC
chicken sandwich
McChicken Sandwich: Much of McDonalds' poultry comes from Brazil, where the animals live in cramped condition
A chicken squats in a shed the size of a football pitch somewhere in the outback of Brazil. And it's not alone.

One of tens of thousands, each bird is allowed the floor space equivalent to a sheet of A4 paper and will live for just 40 days before it hits its genetically-engineered slaughter weight. That's if it doesn't perish along the way.

Five per cent or so will be unable to cope with the conditions and die even before then.

Those that survive will be plucked and butchered in an industrial process the like of which this planet has never before seen.

Every year billions of chickens will live and die in this way. Of course, South America is a long way away. But your local McDonald's is not. And that is where a significant proportion of this intensively reared meat will eventually end up.
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Family

Tainted nuke plant water reaches major New Jersey aquifer

Wayne Parry
Associated Press
Fri, 07 May 2010 07:24 UTC
Lacey Township, New Jersey - Radioactive water that leaked from the nation's oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state's environmental chief said Friday.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to halt the spread of contaminated water underground, even as it said there was no imminent threat to drinking water supplies.

The department launched a new investigation Friday into the April 2009 spill and said the actions of plant owner Exelon Corp. have not been sufficient to contain water contaminated with tritium.

Tritium is found naturally in tiny amounts and is a product of nuclear fission. It has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.
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Butterfly

Six Months Old and He Can Tell Good from Evil

Maurice Chittenden
Times Online
Sun, 09 May 2010 06:00 UTC
baby
The new research contradicts the theories of Freud and others that humans begin with a moral 'blank slate'
Mothers and fathers might think they have few higher duties than teaching a sense of right and wrong to their children. But research suggests that their offspring may already be a step ahead of them.

Scientists have discovered that babies can start to make moral judgments by the age of six months and may be born with the ability to tell good from bad hard-wired into their brains.

Infants can even act as judge and jury in the nursery. Researchers who asked one-year-old babies to take away treats from a "naughty" puppet found they were sometimes also leaning over and smacking the figure on the head.

The research is being pioneered by a team of psychologists at the infant cognition centre at Yale University in Connecticut. Their findings go against the received wisdom that humans begin life with a moral "blank slate" and are shaped by their parents and social environment.
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Soda Fountains Contaminated with Fecal Bacteria

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Sat, 15 May 2010 12:00 UTC
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© Brian Merchant/foodfreedom
The soda that comes out of fountain machines in restaurants may be widely contaminated with fecal bacteria, according to a study conducted by researchers from Hollins University and published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology.

Researchers tested 30 different self-serve and behind-the-counter soda machines at a variety of restaurants in Virginia's Roanoake Valley for the presence of so-called coliform bacteria, or bacteria that are commonly found in mammal feces. They found that 70 percent of beverages sampled tested positive for some form of bacteria, and 48 percent tested positive for coliform bacteria.

"The EPA regulates our drinking supply, and there can be some bacteria, but one of the things that is not allowed is coliform bacteria," researcher Renee D. Godard said. "We can't have that in our drinking supply. But they're coming out of these soda fountain machines."

Twenty percent of beverages tested positive for levels of coliform bacteria exceeding drinking water standards.
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Cult

Psychopathy Alert! FDA: Glaxo, Merck vaccines OK despite pig virus contamination

Susan Heavey
Reuters
Sat, 15 May 2010 14:27 UTC
The Food and Drug administration, in a statement, said it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo's Rotarix and continue using Merck's Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm and the vaccines were important in preventing hospitalizations and death.

Rotavirus can cause fatal diarrhea. Both vaccines target the virus, but pieces of DNA from porcine circovirus (PCV) have been found in both companies' products.

The FDA's decision follows a May 7 recommendation by its advisory panel, which ruled that the risk to humans from the pig virus was theoretical at best. It called for continued use of the vaccines, saying their benefits outweighed any potential risk.
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Health

Genetically Modified Foods: 80% of What's In Your Grocery Cart

Dr Tim O'Shea
The Doctor Within
Sat, 15 May 2010 00:34 UTC
"As a scientist, actively working in the field[of GMO] I find that it is very, very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs."
- Arpad Pusztai, PhD
Since the 1990s world agriculture and food production has undergone the most radical transformation in history. With very little public awareness, in just a few short years genetically modified foods have come to dominate both global agriculture and supermarket shelf space.

What are GM foods?

What are their effects on human health and nutrition?

What are the effects on human DNA?

What have we done to our food?

This chapter hopes to serve as an introduction to the enormous new field known as the Biotech Industry. Does it really hold the promise of 'feeding the starving people' of the world as we often hear, or is there some other agenda here?
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Telephone

Mom's Voice Soothes Stress, Even by Phone

Bill Hendrick
WebMD
Thu, 13 May 2010 16:35 UTC
mother daughter
© unknown
Study Shows a Mother's Voice Can Reduce Stress Levels in Young Girls

A kind word from mom by phone may be as good as a hug in calming the frayed nerves of frazzled daughters, a new study indicates.

In the study, which involved 61 girls aged 7 to 12, researchers say a mere phone call from their moms helped reduce the stress levels of the youngsters.

Led by biological anthropologist Leslie Seltzer, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the research team set out to measure fluctuations of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as of the "comfort" or "cuddle" hormone oxytocin.
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Health

Childhood Psychological Problems Create Long-Term Economic Losses, Study Finds


Science Daily
Fri, 14 May 2010 16:01 UTC
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© Unknown
A first-of-its-kind study examining the long-term economic consequences of childhood psychological disorders finds the conditions diminish people's ability to work and earn as adults, costing $2.1 trillion over the lifetimes of all affected Americans.

People who suffer from childhood conditions such as depression and substance abuse are less likely to be married, attain less education and see their income reduced by about 20 percent over their lifetimes, according to findings published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine.

"This study shows childhood psychological disorders can cause significant long-lasting harm and can have far-reaching impact on individuals over their lifetimes," said James P. Smith, the study's lead author and corporate chair of economics at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Our findings illustrate what the enormous potential might be of identifying and treating these problems early in life."
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