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Canada Bans Nanotechnology in Organics


The Organic & Non-GMO Report
Wed, 05 May 2010 21:00 UTC
US National Organic Standards Board needs to define "nanotechnology"

Canada has banned nanotechnology in organic food production. An amendment was added to Canada's national organic rules banning nanotechnology as a "Prohibited Substance or Method." The section lists substances or techniques that are prohibited in organic food production, including genetic engineering, synthetic pesticides, irradiation, and cloned animals, among others.

Nanotechnology involves the creation and manipulation of materials at the scale of atoms and molecules. Scientists are applying nanotechnology to many industries, including food production. Critics say that too little is known about the impact of nanoparticles on human health and the environment.

Comment: For more information about 'nanotechnology' read the following articles carried on SOTT:

More Research Urged on Nanoparticle Risk

Australia - Regulate nanotechnology industry

Nanotechnology - the new threat to food

Food Industry 'Too Secretive' Over Nanotechnology

Alert over the march of the 'grey goo' in nanotechnology Frankenfoods

Scientists Scared as Nanotechnology and Nanoparticles Become Common in Consumer Products

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Info

Nonsanto: A Month Without Monsanto

Sarah Newman
Civil Eats
Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:21 UTC
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When I first heard about April Davila's quest to live without Monsanto for a month, I thought she was doing something noble in a public setting. But, would it really be that hard? As a locavore, I pride myself on purchasing my produce from farmer's markets, so couldn't she just do the same? When we decided to meet, I soon realized that my arrogant assumptions had enough hot air to heat a compost bin.

After many attempts to find a place to meet, we settled on having organic herbal tea at a local coffee shop. She greeted me in her new wardrobe. No, she's isn't an Angeleno fashionista. Rather, Monsanto owns most cotton seeds so she had to purchase clothes and shoes made from other sources. April is plain and soft-spoken - I wouldn't pick her to stand with a bull-horn outside of a McDonald's protest. Despite her demeanor, her month without Monsanto was her own small but very impactful way of positively affecting our food system.
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Flashback The Truth About Tattoos: Health Risks, Toxicity and More

Julie Genser
NaturalNews
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:00 UTC
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© NaturalNews
A frighteningly growing number of teens and young adults around the world are injecting dangerous chemicals under their skin in the name of art and self-expression. A trend that started growing in America and Europe in the early '90s, tattooing soon became so popular that 36% of Americans aged 25-29 had at least one body tattoo by 2003.[1]

The numbers have undoubtedly risen in the four years since; tattoos are now well-entrenched in the mainstream.

Even the media regularly glorifies tattoo culture, as evidenced by reality TV shows like The Learning Channel's Miami Ink and LA Ink, and Inked on A&E, as well as frequent magazine sightings of tattoo-sporting celebrities like Paris Hilton, David Beckham, and Angelina Jolie, and print ads featuring tattooed models and athletes, like Calvin Klein Underwear's Fredrik Ljungberg (who, by the way, had a severe allergic reaction to his tattoos and had to have a lymph gland removed).[2]
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Confronting the Defining Affliction of Our Time: A Review of Diabetes Rising

Christina Livadiotis
Civil Eats
Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:31 UTC
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"Once upon a time, diabetes was rare." So states Dan Hurley in his book, Diabetes Rising, an investigation into the rising, the reasons and the remedies for both types 1 and 2 diabetes. As early as the prologue, Hurley asserts his determination to belie what he calls the "misleading, mistaken, or outdated" conventional wisdom surrounding diabetes, specifically:
"Type 1 is rare and strikes out of the blue, due in part to a genetic risk, set off by perhaps a virus or some other kind of stress. To treat it, you take insulin, test your blood sugars, and carefully watch what you eat...Type 2 is far more widespread, and spreading fast along with America's waistline. It's caused by eating too much and exercising too little..."
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Why Himalayan Pink Crystal Salt is So Much Better for your Health than Processed Table Salt

Mike Adams
Natural News
Wed, 05 May 2010 16:08 UTC
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If you've been reading NaturalNews for long, you've heard me talk about the importance of switching from processed table salt to a "full spectrum" salt. Table salt - or "white salt" - is to real salt as table sugar is to dehydrated cane juice. Both white table salt and white sugar are devoid of the full spectrum of minerals and other nutrients that protect and enhance your health.

Here in Ecuador, I regularly drink jugo de caña, for example (fresh, raw sugar cane juice), but I would never think of eating refined white sugar. I don't use refined white table salt, either. Instead, I use Himalayan Pink Crystal Salt because it contains the full spectrum of 84 minerals and trace elements just like Mother Earth intended. It is an unrefined, unprocessed "raw" salt that's hand-mined from abundant salt caves that were formed 250 million years ago as ocean salt settled in certain geologic pockets around the earth.

Most of the western world thinks of salt as sodium chloride - a highly refined, processed white substance that's devoid of nutrients. Salt is so devoid of nutrients, in fact, that in the early 20th century, doctors noticed that people who ate white table salt started to suffer chronic degenerative diseases such as goiter. This was caused by the lack of iodine in the salt.
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One Sleepless Night can Induce Insulin Resistance in Healthy People


PhysOrg
Wed, 05 May 2010 09:20 UTC
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© Getty Images
According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), just one night of short sleep duration can induce insulin resistance, a component of type 2 diabetes.

"Sleep duration has shortened considerably in western societies in the past decade and simultaneously, there has been an increase in the prevalence of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes," said Esther Donga, MD of the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands and lead author of the study. "The co-occurring rises in shortened sleep and diabetes prevalence may not be a coincidence. Our findings show a short night of sleep has more profound effects on metabolic regulation than previously appreciated."

Previous studies have found that reductions in sleep duration over multiple nights result in impaired glucose tolerance, but this is the first study to examine the effects of only a single night of partial sleep restriction on insulin sensitivity.
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Kids with Hearing Loss in One Ear Fall Behind in Language Skills, Study Finds


ScienceDaily
Tue, 04 May 2010 20:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
By the time they reach school age, one in 20 children have hearing loss in one ear. That can raise significant hurdles for these children, say the results of a new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, because loss of hearing in one ear hurts their ability to comprehend and use language.

"For many years, pediatricians and educators thought that as long as children have one normal hearing ear, their speech and language would develop normally," says lead author Judith E. C. Lieu, MD, a Washington University ear, nose and throat specialist at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

"But then a few studies began suggesting these children might have problems in school. Now our study has shown that on average, children with hearing loss in one ear have poorer oral language scores than children with hearing in both ears," Lieu says.
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Pills

Big Pharma, Bad Medicine: How Corporate Dollars Corrupt Research and Education

Marcia Angell, M.D.
Boston Review
Wed, 05 May 2010 08:15 UTC
In May of 2000, shortly before I stepped down as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, I wrote an editorial entitled, "Is Academic Medicine for Sale?" It was prompted by a clinical trial of an antidepressant called Serzone that was published in the same issue of the Journal.

The authors of that paper had so many financial ties to drug companies, including the maker of Serzone, that a full-disclosure statement would have been about as long as the article itself, so it could appear only on our Web site. The lead author, who was chairman of the department of psychiatry at Brown University (presumably a full-time job), was paid more than half a million dollars in drug-company consulting fees in just one year. Although that particular paper was the immediate reason for the editorial, I wouldn't have bothered to write it if it weren't for the fact that the situation, while extreme, was hardly unique.

Among the many letters I received in response, two were especially pointed. One asked rhetorically, "Is academic medicine for sale? These days, everything is for sale." The second went further: "Is academic medicine for sale? No. The current owner is very happy with it." The author didn't feel he had to say who the current owner was.
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Vitamin and Calcium Supplements Slash Breast Cancer Risk

S.L. Baker
NaturalNews
Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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It's common for mainstream medical doctors to declare there's no reason to take nutritional supplements. After all, this line of reasoning goes, you are supposedly getting all the nutrition you need from a typical American diet. However, evidence continues to mount disproving this idea. And scientists are documenting that an optimum intake of nutrients can, in fact, have enormous benefits to health. A case in point: a new study indicates taking multi-vitamins and calcium supplements can dramatically slash the risk of breast cancer.

Scientists at the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico investigated 268 women with malignant breast tumors and 457 healthy controls to look for possible causative factors for breast cancer. The results, which were recently presented by Jaime Matta, Ph.D., at the American Association for Cancer Research's 101st Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C., showed vitamin supplements reduced the risk of breast cancer by about 30%.

"It is not an immediate effect. You don't take a vitamin today and your breast cancer risk is reduced tomorrow. However, we did see a long-term effect in terms of breast cancer reduction," Dr. Matta, who headed the study, said in a statement to the press. "We're not talking about mega doses of these vitamins and calcium supplements, so this is definitely one way to reduce risk."
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Aspirin Myth Busted: It Does Not Prevent Cardiovascular Disease Deaths At All

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Kirkland
Aspirin is unhelpful in preventing heart-related death in those "at risk" of cardiovascular disease, according to a study published in the Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB).

Doctors have long recommended that people who have survived heart attacks or strokes take an aspirin a day in order to reduce their risk of dying from another cardiovascular event. Between 2005 and 2006, however, many health professionals began to recommend the practice in people who had never suffered a cardiovascular event, but who were considered "at risk" to do so - such as those over the age of 50, those with Type 2 diabetes or those with high blood pressure.

"Current evidence for primary prevention suggests the benefits and harms of aspirin in this setting may be more finely balanced than previously thought," said DTB editor Ike Ikeanacho, "even in individuals estimated to be at high risk of experiencing cardiovascular events, including those with diabetes or elevated blood pressure."
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