Vicki B. Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America, wrote, "Alongside natural disaster, a very real human disaster looms. The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has wrought havoc on sea and on land. But attention is now turning to the long-term effects the disaster will have on the coastlines, on businesses, and on American men, women and children. The immediate effects of the oil spill are obvious. Others, such as its effects on American families, will be hard to measure and will take years to document."

There are effects from the oil spill that you can see, like oil washing ashore, and those that you can't, like when oil compounds break down and go airborne. What is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is truly a nightmare of epic proportions. And it's going to be a health disaster whose dimensions are growing exponentially behind curtains erected by the federal government. Few people are grasping the magnitude of the Gulf oil tragedy, not grasping the grave consequences for many millions of people and eventually the entire world. It is going to affect not only the livelihoods and employment of locals but will also contribute to the health failure of millions of people. It is so profoundly sad - like watching a loved one with a gunshot to the belly witnessing the blood coming out, but in this case it's the planet belching up black blood and poison gas in huge and very possibly unending quantities.

There's an old adage about not seeing the forest for the trees. It means getting wrapped up in the details of a circumstance and losing appreciation for the big picture. Sometimes we need to step back and look at things from a different perspective. Consider the extraordinary situation in the Gulf. Not that much news coming out of there, no mention of deadly threats but we do know who went to the yacht races last weekend. Life seems almost normal on the front page of the Times or in Yahoo or Google News. Things are stabilizing at the king of pop's mansion, and Obama is personally meeting with a young gay girl who was given a hard time with her prom.

While the situation in the Gulf is grim it will soon get a lot grimmer. There are certain chemicals mixed in with the oil that release toxic gases, finding a way to make it up into the air. Many different gases from hydrogen sulfate to benzene are being released into the air at around 4000 times what it considered safe to humans. As a result of this people are going to become gravely ill. People are going to be poisoned and unfortunately some are going to die. We have already seen breathing problems in the Gulf region and now reports are coming in as far away as Atlanta, Georgia.

There are "large gaps" in data now being gathered on the health of the 34,000 workers cleaning up the largest oil spill in U.S. history and growing concern that BP Plc will fail to publicize problems if they arise.

Linda McCauley, dean of the Emory University's school of nursing in Atlanta, said, "It's kind of scary" that the cleanup workers are hired by "the people who are actually at fault" and not the local government, "where we know there can be transparency." She led a panel on health effects of the Gulf spill at a U.S. Institute of Medicine hearing today.

Eight panel members interviewed before the meeting said the U.S. government needs to fund years of monitoring of cleanup workers to adequately assess exposure risks to toxic chemicals as a result of the Gulf of Mexico spill. Several likened the lack of coordination in monitoring to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack when the government failed to foresee health fallout that left thousands with long-term illnesses.

The United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) is pushing hard to impose global consumer taxes to help fund its various programs, including a new proposal that would tax the internet in order to pay for vaccines and other pharmaceutical medicines for third-world countries. Yes, you read that right - WHO wants every person in the world to help pay for drugs that make Big Pharma even richer.

Consider it a reverse Robin Hood ploy: They're stealing from the working class and giving to the ultra wealthy drug companies!

Of course this isn't the first time the UN has petitioned governments around the world to illegally tax citizens in order to further its own agenda. This body of unelected officials tried to push "cap and trade" legislation for supposed climate change just last year (but failed to do so because many countries simply refused the idea).

Cancer will kill more than 13.2 million people a year by 2030, almost double the number who died from the disease in 2008. Only 7.6 million people died of cancer in 2008.

Around 56 percent of new cancer cases worldwide in 2008 were in developing countries and these regions also accounted for 63 percent of all cancer deaths.

According to Reuters:

"The projection for annual death rates of 13.2 million and annual diagnosis of 21.4 million were based on assumptions that underlying rates of cancer would remain the same over the next two decades".

The dandelion, considered a pesky weed to gardeners, has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. It grows wild all over North America, Europe and Asia but is also cultivated as a medicinal herb in France and Germany. The leaves, flower and root of the dandelion all have medical value and can also be eaten in its natural state for its vitamin and mineral content. Dandelion leaves are beneficial for many reasons, one of which is to lower high blood pressure.

How Dandelion Leaf Lowers High Blood Pressure

The leaf of the dandelion acts as a natural diuretic and can help to lower the fluids in the body much like prescription diuretics for high blood pressure do. Diuretics work to lower blood pressure by lowering the amount of fluid in the bloodstream so there is less pressure flowing through the veins. Dandelion is a more effective diuretic than synthetic diuretics because it also contains the mineral potassium which is usually lost when using diuretics. In some cases, a patient can reduce the amount of prescription medications he is taking for high blood pressure by adding dandelion supplements to his regime. Of course, this should always be done under the supervision of a doctor.

This week we discuss several ways prescription drugs may be making us all sicker - whether through illnesses brought on because these medicines deplete critical nutrients in our body, or because we're unwittingly consuming pharmaceuticals in the municipal water we drink.

Drug-induced nutrient depletions

The number of dollars spent on prescribed medications in the US is at all time high. Seniors are expected to use an average of 38.5 different medications this year. The number of prescriptions written, drugs dispensed, and dollars spent are carefully recorded each year, particularly for those over the age of 65, but we're doing a lousy job of quantifying the toll our prescription drug use has on our health because of nutrient depletions.

The Cancer Prevention Coalition reminds the American public that the 1938 Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act explicitly stipulates: "Each ingredient used in a cosmetic product and each finished cosmetic product shall be adequately substantiated for safety prior to marketing."

In the absence of adequate evidence of safety, products must be conspicuously labeled on their principle display panel: "WARNING: THE SAFETY OF THIS PRODUCT HAS NOT BEEN DETERMINED." Furthermore, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is authorized to pursue enforcement action after a product containing dangerous ingredients has been marketed.

However, warns Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, in spite of such explicit pre-and-post-marketing authority, the FDA has taken no regulatory action whatsoever over the last six decades, continuing until today, to protect the public from unknowing exposures to a wide range of toxic ingredients in cosmetic and personal care products. These include allergens, hormones, carcinogens and their precursors, and ultra-microscopic nanoparticles.

Confirming a long-held supposition, new research shows that children bear high burdens of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants in their bodies. In the first study to compare children's uptake with that of their mothers, researchers found that children's PBDE levels are around 2.8 times higher (Environmental Science & Technology).

For decades, the retardants featured in a wide variety of U.S. consumer goods, including automobiles, airplanes, electronics, and furniture. Adding to concerns about health effects, two recent studies linked elevated PBDEs in children to decreased IQ and other neurodevelopmental impairments (Environmental Health Perspectives).

Shea butter is fantastically versatile, especially the raw unrefined variety. A real skin food, it is good for dry and sensitive skin, soothing for sore, cracked skin and its anti-inflammatory properties make it useful for sun burn, itchiness, insect bites, rashes and eczema.

It is rich in natural vitamins that promote healthy skin and cell repair. You can even use it in your hair before washing as a nourishing conditioner. And because a little goes a long way, one pot will probably last you all summer.

Gen-M, "Generation Monsanto," the first generation of humans force-fed genetically modified foods, hasn't reached reproductive age yet (they were born in the late 1990s). But, if a critical mass of animal feeding studies are any indication, the millennial generation, reared on Food Inc.'s unlabeled "Frankenfoods" can look forward to a long-term epidemic of cancer, food allergies, sterility, learning disabilities, and birth defects.

Corn (85% of U.S. production is GM), soy (91% GM), cotton (88% GM), canola (85% GM) and sugar beets (95% GM) are all genetically engineered by Monsanto to withstand massive doses of the company's glyphosate herbicide Round Up, or else to exude their own pesticide, Bacillus Thuriengensis (Bt). Round Up, the favorite weedkiller poison of non-organic farmers and gardeners, causes brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses. And scientists warn that Round Up, the most extensively used herbicide in the history of agriculture, "may have dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious." In addition, hundreds of thousands of US dairy cows are injected with genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (developed by Monsanto) in spite of studies linking rBGH with cancer, and longstanding bans on the drug in the EU, Japan, Canada, and most industrialized nations.