Health & Wellness
Despite what the media preaches to you, your body has no intrinsic need for drugs. Over the course of a lifetime, the average person may be prescribed 14,000 pills (this doesn't even include over-the-counter meds), and by the time you reach your 70s you could be taking five or more pills every day, according to Pill Poppers, a documentary.
The featured film asks a poignant question that anyone taking medications should also, which is, are these pills really beneficial, or are they doing more harm than good?
© Flickr
So what action is the FDA really taking? Due to intense consumer demand, manufacturers of infant formula packaging have already stopped using BPA. And, based on the new standard for arsenic levels, 95 percent of companies that make apple juice are already in compliance.
The FDA's BPA ban is actually an abandonment petition coming from industry stating that it is now illegal to use BPA for those specific products - but it does not say anything about the safety of BPA.
The slow-motion catastrophes are:
- antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria - often termed 'superbugs'
- pesticide-resistant pests - also called 'superbugs'
- herbicide-resistant weeds - now termed 'superweeds'
All three are the result of the application of synthetic toxicity within nature in an attempt to work outside nature's normal processes. The application of toxins meant to inhibit certain organisms produces resistance, because living organisms by nature seek to survive, and will adapt to toxicity in order to continue their survival.
This ability to adapt has been studied for many years by scientists and is well known among biology and evolution science. It is one of the foundations of biology taught at the most fundamental levels of instruction for any beginning scientist.
Yet the scientific community has failed to understand how this most fundamental part of nature will interact with the toxicity that we have introduced over the past century. Did the scientists who developed these synthetic toxins really believe those toxins would provide a permanent solution?
We obviously ignored this most fundamental understanding that living organisms will adapt to toxins. We forgot that organisms will develop defense mechanisms that will override deterrent toxins - producing a stronger organism in the process.
Three-quarters of Americans expressed concern about genetically modified organisms in their food, with most of them worried about the effects on people's health.
Thirty-seven percent of those worried about G.M.O.'s said they feared that such foods cause cancer or allergies, although scientific studies continue to show that there is no added risk.
Comment: Scientific Studies continue to show there is no added risk? GMO's are worrisome and there is scientific studies and research that address the fears of consumers when it comes to eating GMO foods. Read the following articles for a more informed perspective on this issue:
Latest GMO Research: Decreased Fertility, Immunological Alterations and Allergies
GMO Scandal: The Long Term Effects of Genetically Modified Food in Humans
Is Monsanto trying to kill us with GMO frankenfoods?
GMO Foods Pose Higher Risks for Children
GMOs and Health: The scientific basis for serious concern and immediate action
How to Win a GMO Debate: 10 Facts Why Genetically Modified Food is Bad
How Biotech Corporations and GMO Crops are Threatening the Environment and Humankind Alike
New York Times editors ignore GMO health dangers
Think the Anti-GMO movement is unscientific? Think again
"Anyone that says, 'Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,' I say is either unbelievably stupid, or deliberately lying. The reality is, we don't know. The experiments simply haven't been done, and now we have become the guinea pigs." ~ David Suzuki, geneticist
Now that the mainstream media is catching on to the public sentiment against GMO food, or at least against unlabeled GMO food, to the tune of millions of Americans who made it a point to drag themselves out of their homes to protest Monsanto last month (as well as at least 40 additional countries), inevitably the indictment will be made: "the anti-GMO movement is "unscientific."" Is that really so?
What we do know is that the unintended consequences of the recombinant DNA process employed to create genetically engineering organisms are beyond the ability of present-day science to comprehend. This is largely due to the post-Human Genome Project revelation that the holy grail of molecular biology, the overly-simplified 'one gene > one trait' model, is absolutely false...
The problem, of course, is that the burden of proving safety or toxicity falls on the exposed populations (Suzuki's "guinea pigs"), which only after many years of chronic exposure reveal the harms in their diseases, and then only vaguely in hard-to-prove post-marketing surveillance and epidemiological associations and linkages.
So, with this in mind, let's bring up one dimension of the toxicity of GM foods and agriculture that cannot be thrown out as 'unscientific,' because it is clearly proven to be a health problem in the peer-reviewed and published literature: Roundup herbicide.
Among those with concerns, 26 percent said these foods are not safe to eat, or are toxic, while 13 percent were worried about environmental problems that they fear might be caused by genetic engineering.
The screw-worm larva like eating human flesh
Rochelle Harris, 27, said she remembered dislodging a fly from her ear while in Peru but thought nothing more of it until she started getting headaches and pains down one side of her face and woke up in Britain one morning with liquid on her pillow.
Thinking she had a routine ear infection caused by a mosquito bite, she sought medical treatment at the Royal Derby Hospital in northern England, where a consultant noticed maggots in a small hole in her ear-canal.
© Matt Sprake/Sunday People
Seanie Nammock
Seanie Nammock
Fashion-mad Seanie Nammock is spending the summer hanging out with friends and shopping for clothes on a well-earned break from her A-levels.
She never goes out without putting on her full make-up and dressing up to look her best. So to most observers she appears like any other attractive sixth-form girl.
But Seanie, 17, is suffering from a crippling genetic condition so rare that it affects only 45 people in the UK. Cruelly - it is slowly turning her into a living statue.
For five years she has been battling fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, known as FOP or stone man syndrome. It turns muscles, ligaments and tendons into solid bone. This forms a second skeleton on top of the original one, and each section of her body affected becomes solid like a statue.
The researchers found that Lactobacillus plantarum enhanced the degradation of the pesticide from 15-34%, a close to 81% enhancement. The significance and impact of the study was described as follows:
Pesticide residues are an unavoidable part of the environment due to their extensive applications in agriculture. As wheat is a major cultivated cereal, the presence of pesticide residues in wheat is a real concern to human health. Reduction in pesticide residues during fermentation has been studied, but there is a lack of data regarding pesticide residues dissipation during cereal fermentation. Present work investigates the dissipation of pirimiphos-methyl during wheat fermentation by L. plantarum. Results are confirmation that food-processing techniques can significantly reduce the pesticide residues in food, offering a suitable means to tackle the current scenario of unsafe food.
© Thinkstock
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported one case in Central Illinois confirmed in a person who traveled to Iowa, where many of the cyclospora infection cases have been reported.
There are no confirmed cases in Missouri, where Ryan Hobart is a spokesman for the Missouri Health Department.
"We recommend that Missourians who feel they may be ill or have some of the symptoms, they should contact their health care provider to be examined," Hobart says.
© Unknown
Labour called for an "urgent investigation" into the findings, and said the Coalition needs to "be honest" about whether cuts to social care budgets over the past three years have contributed to the spike in mortality rates.
The increase in deaths has been most striking amongst women aged 85 and over, and that rise is the driving force behind alarming statistics which suggest around 600 more people than expected are dying every week, the analysis revealed.
The document, made public by the Health Service Journal, reveals that number-crunchers at Public Health England have been "tracking the mortality summaries to determine if last year's unwelcome increase in mortality in older age may be continuing."
© Times Colonist
Louise Campbell says sensitivity to wireless electronic devices makes it difficult to endure things as simple as a two-hour ferry ride.
Louise Campbell says sensitivity to wireless electronic devices makes it difficult to endure things as simple as a two-hour ferry ride.
Louise Campbell of Nanoose Bay says her sensitivity to wireless devices can make a ferry ride to the Mainland a nightmare.
"For me, my day is thinking about how long I can spend in the mall, because there's Wi-Fi in the mall. If I'm going to a friend's house, I have to ask them to turn the Wi-Fi off," she said.
Campbell claims her condition causes her to become lightheaded when exposed to wireless devices.
A two-hour trip into the city can leave her fatigued for the rest of the day. Campbell avoids restaurants, coffee shops, movie theatres and anywhere she expects exposure.
The situation impelled Campbell to call on B.C. Ferries to provide a way to limit exposure to the ship's wireless technology while on voyages to the Mainland.
She is not the first to make the request, said B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall. Marshall advised people like Campbell to reach out to the customer care department.
"There are some areas on the ship that the signals are quite weak . . . for example, the car decks," she said.
Comment: From the Wikipedia page on this condition: