Australia is experiencing its worse flu outbreak sparking fears it could be repeated in Europe, the United States and Canada. A total of 52 deaths associated with influenza have already been reported in many states compared with 27 fatalities this time last year.

Similarly the number of flu-related hospitalizations have almost doubled, presently standing at nearly 1450 versus 719 last year. Medics have also warned the winter spike in flu-like symptoms has occurred earlier than usual across the country, according to the latest data.

Now health services in the US, Northern America and across Europe are bracing themselves for an identical scenario.

"In general, we get in our season what the southern hemisphere got in the season immediately proceeding us. An intelligent guess, therefore, is that the north will probably have a bad flu season. With influenza, it is never 100 percent. There is nothing really unusual about this year except that it's a high year in Australia, which is what you see every once in a while," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the United States' National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said.

Dr. Fauci stressed that the "only thing that you can predict about influenza is that it's going to be unpredictable."

Splenda is marketed as a no-calorie, no-guilt sugar substitute. Blood sugar stable, it "passes right through" the body, so it's safe for diabetics AND you won't gain weight! Are these claims masking the ugly truth about this chemical imposter? As mounting research shows, when it comes to our diet, there is no free lunch.

Splenda's Spurious Claims

The allure is plain to see: a sweetener made from sugar, that tastes like sugar, but has zero calories. If the marketing is to be believed, this product is better than the real thing. It's everything we love, with all of the evils removed.

When it comes to product marketing, beware the free lunch. Despite claims by the manufacturers that Splenda use is part of a healthy lifestyle, research is piling up that tells a very different story.

From the myth-busting studies linking Splenda to diabetes and weight-gain to sobering research showing increased risks of cancer, and more, our sucralose research portal reveals 22 different signs of trouble associated with this artificial sweetener.

Before we dive into the top reasons to avoid Splenda, let's separate fact from fiction regarding exactly what this false promise really is.

Australian doctor exposes vaccine damage, stands up to government/media attacks

Here is what he wrote

In Australia, the noose is tightening around parents' and children's necks.

There is already a policy in place that denies certain government benefits to families who don't vaccinate their kids. Now, there is legislation that would deny unvaccinated children enrollment in daycare and kindergarten.

But a grassroots rebellion is underway.

Australian MD John Piesse has stepped out of the shadows and reported his findings and research on vaccine damage. The government is investigating him. They may strip his license. The press is attacking him mercilessly.

He isn't backing down.

His stance is certainly heroic, but remember that every doctor takes an oath to do no harm to his patients. Without question, there are many other doctors who know the truth, first-hand, about what vaccines really do. But they stay silent.

Some of these doctors don't vaccinate their own children...but they continue to inject toxic chemicals and viruses into their young patients. That is a crime and betrayal of the first order.

Post traumatic stress disorder could soon be diagnosed with simple blood test after scientists found crucial genetic changes in soldiers suffering from trauma after serving in Afghanistan. PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by stressful or frightening events which can cause flashbacks, nightmares, depression, sleep problems and guilt.

Until now it could only be diagnosed through self-reported symptoms, which many victims, particularly servicemen, were reluctant to disclose.

But scientists at the University of Maastricht discovered crucial differences in the microRNA molecules of soldiers who had served time in Afghanistan.

Alzheimer's disease, a severe form of dementia, affects an estimated 5.2 million Americans;¹ 200,000 of which are under the age of 65. According to recent data, Alzheimer's disease kills more than half a million Americans per year,² making Alzheimer's the third leading killer in the U.S., right behind heart disease and cancer.

Since there's no conventional cure, it's really important to take prevention seriously. There are also few if any successful medical treatments available once Alzheimer's sets in. For example, memantine (sold under the brand name Namenda) is approved for moderate to severe cases of Alzheimer's, but doctors also prescribe it off-label for mild cases. Unfortunately, the drug has been found to be practically useless for mild to moderate Alzheimer's.³

Other go-to drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's include cholinesterase inhibitor drugs such as Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl. These too may do more harm than good as they provoke slower heart rates, significantly increasing your chances of getting a permanent pacemaker. They also raise your risk of hip fracture.

I swing my heavy cleaver down onto the sticky surface of the stump, slicing through the thin bone of the chicken's neck with a swift sureness that I have gained only through practice. The chicken's eyes grow murky as life withdraws from them and blood spurts from the main artery that supplies the brain.

There is always a rush of sadness and adrenaline in me as I take the life of a chicken, though I have taken hundreds of chickens lives. I am filthy, my white apron covered in blood and a sheen of poultry guts. A droplet of salty sweat drips into my eyes but I can't wipe it away with hands covered in blood and gore.

I've often noted that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are a pernicious, hidden health risk. But exactly how does this kind of microwave radiation damage your health? Martin Pall, Ph.D., has identified and published research describing the likely molecular mechanisms of how EMFs from cellphones and wireless technologies damage plants, animals and humans.^{1,2 ,3,4}

Pall has a bachelor's in physics from Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and genetics from Caltech, and is uniquely qualified for this type of research. For the past 18 years, he's been scouring the medical literature, integrating and drawing parallels between work done by others to answer this pressing question. Pall explains:

"There is a huge amount of information out here that nobody has the time to integrate, digest and make connections [between]. That's what I've been doing ... I was interested in EMFs before I could understand how they worked. Then I stumbled onto two papers that told me, 'Well, this looks like the way they work,' and then I dug out more and more papers ...

What the [initial two] studies showed was that you could block or greatly lower the effects [of EMF] by using calcium channel blockers ... That was the key observation ...

Now [I have found] 26 [papers] ... They all show that EMFs work by activating what are called voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs). These are channels in the outer membrane of the cell, the plasma membrane that surrounds all our cells. When they're activated, they open up and allow calcium to flow into the cell. It's the excess calcium in the cell which is responsible for most if not all of the [biological effects]."

Metals including toxic lead contaminate virtually all aluminum adjuvants, a widely-used ingredient of human and animal vaccines, according to a recent study published in the leading journal of the vaccine industry.

Contaminants including iron, copper, nickel and chromium were found in varying levels in each vaccine adjuvant sampled from different lots. Other impurities including lead were present in measurable amounts. Lead is a neurotoxic metal which the World Health Organization and other agencies have said there is no acceptable safe level in children.

"To the best of our knowledge, this was the first study to characterize the specific content of elemental impurities in commercially available aluminum hydroxide adjuvant product with specific, sensitive, state-of-the-art methods," the researchers from Valneva SE, a European vaccine research and manufacturing company, and Brenntag Biosector, a Denmark-based global supplier of the most widely used vaccine adjuvant, Alhydrogel, said.

An exhaustive new study is sounding the alarm over industrial pesticide use and its effect on human health. Pregnant women in California's San Joaquin Valley have a significantly greater chance of premature birth or birth abnormalities if they live near agricultural fields with high pesticide use.

"[F]or individuals in the top 5 per cent of exposure, pesticide exposure led to 5 to 9 per cent increases in adverse outcomes.

The magnitude of effects was further enlarged for the top 1 per cent, where these extreme exposures (more than 11,000kg over gestation) led to an 11 per cent increased probability of preterm birth, 20 per cent increased probability of low birth weight, and about a 30g decrease in birth weight."

The good news is that most do not experience birth problems, but the study tells us that pesticides do have an association with serious health problems. Focusing mitigation efforts on areas with high pesticide use could have a dramatic beneficial impact.

Hailed as a major advancement in scientific understanding, the study compared 500,000 birth records in the San Joaquin Valley between 1997 and 2011 with levels of pesticides used in the area. Researchers note that their study design "has far stronger statistical power to identify effects than previous studies," and it allows us "to evaluate many details of the nature of pesticide exposure."

I've got a real doozy to share with you today. Do you remember the recent Evanger's dog food recall, the one due to pentobarbital contamination?1 As a refresher, in January, four Pugs in one household in Washington State became ill and one died after eating Evanger's Hunk of Beef au Jus canned dog food.

The FDA opened an investigation, and lab tests revealed a large quantity of pentobarbital (an animal euthanasia drug) in the food. The agency also found the drug in other Evanger's products, including Evanger's Braised Beef Chunks and Against the Grain Grain-Free Pulled Beef with Gravy.

Evanger's issued a voluntary recall of those products, and then apparently got the bright idea to donate the stuff to animal shelters. I kid you not. Fortunately, the FDA rejected the company's donation request. According to a pet food industry journal article, Nicholas F. Lyons, FDA director of compliance, stated the following in a letter to Evanger's:

"In your firm's correspondence dated 4/4/17, it was requested to donate the recalled product to an animal shelter. FDA does not agree that analyzing individual units from recalled lots and finding those units negative for pentobarbital contamination provides sufficient assurance that the remaining units are not adulterated.

As can be observed in the samples collected by FDA, the pentobarbital contamination is not homogeneous throughout all units in a lot."2

Apparently, Evanger's also told the FDA they could grind up the dog food to "reduce pentobarbital to negligible levels," but the FDA informed them there's NO tolerable level of pentobarbital in pet food. Fortunately, the FDA was watching out for pets in this instance, which sadly isn't always the case.