Health & WellnessS


Megaphone

Barbara Loe Fisher: End pharma liability shield endangering public health & human rights

Barbara Loe Fisher
National Vaccine Information Center
Tue, 08 Nov 2016 00:29 UTC
Health freedom and the civil liberties

Health freedom and the civil liberties of Americans are at risk with yet another CDC-proposed public health law, paired with an expanding global vaccine market.

Another sign that autonomy and civil liberties are being threatened in America is the recently proposed change to public health law published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)1 that allows federal officials to use police power to apprehend, isolate and involuntarily quarantine travelers simply suspected of being at risk for getting measles or other infections until they sign a contract agreeing to application of "public health measures," like vaccination. A big reason they can get away with it is that nobody is accountable in a civil court of law when people are harmed by public health laws.

Curbing civil liberties under the guise of protecting the public health and national security has become big business. In 1982, when the pharmaceutical industry threatened to stop producing government licensed and recommended vaccines for children unless vaccine manufacturers got a product liability shield, Congress gave Big Pharma most of what it wanted in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 19862. It was tort reform legislation sold to parents and the American public on the backs of children legally required by states to get federally recommended vaccines to attend school3.
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Microscope 2

Studies on oral glutathione


Immune Health Science
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 15:29 UTC
pill glutatione
Oral glutathione supplementation has become very popular in the past decade.

Glutathione dietary supplements are known as L-glutathione, reduced glutathione or GSH. They come in pills, capsules, tablets, in powedered and liquid form, as sublingual drops or slow-melt tablets.

More and more people hear about glutathione (GSH) and its vital importance for proper detoxification, strong immune health, energy levels, endurance, muscle strength, anti-aging, master antioxidant role, and overall disease prevention.

People with various health concerns turn to glutathione pills, too, because they read in a health magazine or heard from TV gurus that raising glutathione would improve their condition.

Doctors who are aware of the benefits of elevated glutathione suggest glutathione supplementation to their patients, and/or prescribe NAC for them (while NAC is not glutathione, it is a pharmaceutical cysteine delivery system that raises GSH but can have some adverse side effects).

Oral glutathione supplementation is also very convenient - just take a pill once a day as you would do with a multivitamin. In our fast lives convenience is often as important as the end result of taking a supplement, if not more.

Our logic assumes that if a supplement is sold at all health food stores, pharmacies and online, and if it is advertised in mass media, it means the supplement must work well.

However, most people, including medical professionals, are not aware of the fact that glutathione pills may not be very helpful to the body. (Out of all the decades of research only one recent study showed an increase in blood GSH levels in healthy adults with oral supplementation. See the details below.)
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Magnify

Biofilms: Safe haven for extraterrestrial-like bacteria

Thomas Ropp
Honey Colony
Wed, 11 Jan 2017 15:18 UTC
biofilms
Is time running out? Can nothing stop biofilm-producing microbes?

"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot

It could be a sequel to Andromeda Strain: biofilm-producing bacteria that talk, move, hide, and touch. Their mission? To destroy us. But it's not fiction. It's real. With improved technology, researchers are delving deeper into this enigmatic intracellular world of "intelligent" microbial lifeforms that are resistant to antibiotics. What they're learning is both amazing and terrifying.

Bacterial biofilms are microorganisms that stick together and form a slimy mass. They are everywhere in nature: on rocks, in streams, on trees, our teeth (plaque), even in our kitchen drains. Inside our bodies they are produced by a group of pathogenic bacteria that use the sticky, gelatinous biofilms as protection from both antibiotics and our own immune system. This makes them especially difficult to eradicate and potentially lethal.
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Briefcase

Challenging California's new vaccine mandate - lawsuit focuses on constitutional principals

Julie Wilson
Organic Consumers Association
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 14:15 UTC
vaccines
© Skeptical Raptor
A group of plaintiffs represented by the non-profit A Voice for Choice, Inc. have filed a lawsuit challenging California's mandatory vaccine law, which eliminates personal and religious belief exemptions for students in public and private schools.

In the case Love v. California, plaintiffs argue that because public education is a fundamental right protected under the California Constitution, "the state cannot force students to give up their constitutional right to refuse medical treatment, if they want to exercise their constitutional right to attend school."

A federal judge has scheduled what plaintiffs are calling a "critical hearing" for today, January 13 at 10AM PST in Los Angeles to consider the plaintiff's request to "enjoin Senate Bill 277," according to a press release from A Voice for Choice.

The lawsuit "hinges on the doctrine of Unconstitutional Conditions - that the government cannot force citizens to give up one constitutional right to exercise another," the plaintiffs say.
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Health

Desynchronization of our internal clock could be a risk factor for low back pain


Chronobiology
Sat, 14 Jan 2017 08:39 UTC
Do you suffer from low back pain? New chronobiology research suggests that your circadian rhythm may be at least partially to blame.
Back pain
© unknown
Low back pain is a common issue that most of us, around four in five people, will suffer from at some point in our lives. It is not just uncomfortable but expensive. Low back pain is the most common cause of work-related disability and requires expensive therapies such as spinal surgery. Most people believe that this pain syndrome is caused by overuse and bad ergonomics, but it appears that a totally different issue may be at play here: desynchronization of the circadian rhythm.

Degenerative Disc Disease: A Pain in the Neck... And Lower Back

Our spine is made of bony vertebrae separated by discs, which are made of a rubbery substance that provides support, shock absorption and flexibility. As we age, these discs dry out and become less functional. They sustain small tears that can damage their integrity. In some people, the discs may even slip slightly out of position and make it painful to move the spine or even to stand upright. If you know someone who has ever "thrown their back out," then you know how painful and debilitating it can be.

Degenerative disc disease has long been viewed as a disease of aging and overuse. While it indeed affects many people over the course of their lives, it may not be only a product of aging. Like all tissues in the human body, intervertebral discs have a diurnal, or daytime, rhythm. When this rhythm becomes desynchronized from that of the rest of the body, discs appear to degenerate faster and create more low back pain.

Comment: For more clues, listen to The Health & Wellness Show: Seeing the Light with Dr. Alexander Wunsch

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Life Preserver

Scientists say children need microbes - not antibiotics - to build immunity

Brandie Weikle
thestar.com
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 22:08 UTC
dirt
Allowing children to play with dirt actually helps them build their immune systems and reduce their chances of developing chronic conditions, such as asthma.
Hyper-hygienic environments can lead to chronic conditions

Yes, it's important to wash your hands. It's critical during cold and flu season and especially if you visit someone at the hospital.

The problem is — in the West at least — parents have taken the business of keeping clean way too far.

New science shows that a lot of the tiny organisms called microbes that we're so busy blasting away with our hand sanitizers, antibacterial soaps and liberal doses of antibiotics are having a profoundly negative impact on our kids' immune systems, says microbiologist Marie-Claire Arrieta, co-author of a new book called Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Our Children from an Oversanitized World.

The assistant professor at the University of Calgary, along with her co-author, esteemed microbiologist Brett Finlay, make the case that we're raising our kids in a cleaner, more hyper-hygienic environment than ever before. They say that overdoing it the way we are is contributing to a host of chronic conditions ranging from allergies to obesity. I chatted with Arrieta recently to find out more.

Comment: Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You

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Attention

Poisoning the well: Outrage over the USA's unsafe drinking water

Noel Franklin
Truth Out
Tue, 03 Jan 2017 21:21 UTC
unsafe drinking water
© PixabayNew reports reveal many communities across the US have contaminated drinking water.
Those shocked by the Flint water crisis should prepare themselves for even worse news: An investigation by Reuters of lead testing results across the country has found almost 3,000 areas with poisoning rates far higher than in the Michigan city.

The affected communities uncovered by Reuters extend from Warren, Pennsylvania, where 36 percent of children tested had elevated lead levels, to an area of Goat Island, Texas, where 25 percent of tests revealed poisoning. In some neighborhoods in distressed cities like Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia, the rate of high tests over the past decade ranged from 40-50 percent.

As in Flint, legacy lead in the form of paint, plumbing or industrial waste has been the root cause of the poisoning. And because many of the most impacted zones lie in poor rural communities, forgotten post-industrial cities or largely minority neighborhoods, the problem has been left to fester for decades by the very authorities that have been charged with protecting public health. Perhaps the worst tragedy in this crisis, which appears to be emerging at a national level, is that disadvantaged children are those who are most likely to have been poisoned.

Reuters' is not the only investigation of the national water crisis to come out, but the question we have to ask ourselves remains: How did this happen in the first place?

Comment: Read more about the 'poisoning of the well' in the U.S.

Chromium-6: The chemical Erin Brockovich warned about is in water all over America
Thousands of Americans drink tap water poisoned by unsafe levels of a cancer-causing heavy metal, and government authorities are doing little to stop it, according to a new report from clean water activists.

The chemical hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, gained notoriety as the carcinogenic water contaminant that Erin Brockovich sued a utility over in California—and the new report from advocacy organization Environmental Working Group finds that it shows up in the water systems of major cities all over the country.

The data estimate that water supplies serving 218 million Americans—more than two-thirds of the population—contain more chromium-6 than California scientists have deemed safe. The group estimated that if nothing changes, chromium-6 in tap water will lead to more than 12,000 excess cases of cancer by the end of the century.

The findings are one more sign of a broken state and federal regulatory system that enabled crises in Flint, Michigan, and Hoosick Falls, New York, among other cities where dangerous contaminants in tap water threatened public health, advocates say.

"This is a repeating story of the lack of regulatory oversight and scientific updates to ensure clean drinking water," Bill Walker, a coauthor of the report, told TakePart. "A basic aspect of public health is being able to drink the tap water. We have not achieved that in the U.S."


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Evil Rays

Growing evidence of harm: Krakow's bold step to curb electromagnetic pollution

Lynne Wycherley
The Ecologist
Thu, 12 Jan 2017 20:27 UTC
wifi
© CC BY-NC-NDKrakow is fighting back against the rising tide of electromagnetic smog amid increasing evidence of its harmful effects.
As Kraków, Poland's second city, takes steps to protect its citizens from rising electromagnetic 'smog' from mobile phones, wifi, Bluetooth, smart meters and other devices, Lynne Wycherley summarises 2016's news highlights on the emerging bio-risks of rising exposure to non-ionisiong radiation. For how much longer can governments continue to ignore the growing evidence of harm?

The first mayor of Kraków to be elected by popular ballot, law professor Jacek Majchrowski is tackling an environmental issue most governors avoid: the electromagnetic pollution in his city.

Following work on air pollution, and in response to growing demand, he is initiating forums for citizens to discuss the growing 'smog' of electro-magnetic fields (EMFs).

In a world first he is also initiating the provision of meters to detect radio-frequency (RF) / extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs so people can collect objective data on their exposure.

In December, Majchrowski hosted an international conference on EMF pollution and citizens' 'right to information' - an echo of the new Right to Know law in Berkeley, California (cell-phone sellers must supply safety information).

Comment: For a broader look at EMF exposure in general and the sources in our environment see:

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Beaker

New study: Hormone disrupting chemicals can cause Endometriosis & Fibroids

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 19:55 UTC
hormone disruptors
© Holy Hormones Journal
In a new study, a team of researchers set out to estimate the health cost of two chemicals in the European Union - Phthalates and DDE.

Both of these chemicals are known hormone disruptors and are found virtually everywhere in the Western world. From plastics to pesticides and from makeup to food both pthalates and DDE are almost impossible to avoid by anyone living a life that is considered somewhat normal.

But both have been strongly linked with "common" female reproductive issues, particularly endometriosis and fibroids.

Between fibroids and endometriosis, it is estimated that 70% of women will experience infertility as a result of exposure.
There are substantial human and toxicological studies (in mice and other lab animals) that suggest that exposure to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals, many of which are increasing in use, are contributing to female reproductive conditions," said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, associate professor of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine.

Comment: Read more about Chemicals Of Concern like phthalates:

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Life Preserver

Fireman's trick can save lives - here's what to do if you're alone and choking


Newsner
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 19:53 UTC
Choking
You're sitting at home alone, when something suddenly gets stuck in your throat - blocking your windpipes. Not a single person is around to help. You're not breathing - and you begin to realize with dread that death could be just seconds away. What to do?

Far too many of us could not answer that question if asked. Meanwhile, a much larger number of us are familiar with what to do if the role is reversed- and you see someone else choking.

Hopefully, this can help.

Fireman Jeff Rehmen presents a technique that is certainly just as good to know as any other. He reveals how to save someone from choking - that someone being, of course, you.
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