Study revealed virus remains infectious for extended periods of time

The deadly virus can survive for more than seven weeks on certain surfaces according to research conducted by the UK's Defense Science and Technology Laboratory.

Tests performed prior to the latest Ebola outbreak in 2010 showed the Zaire strain lived in samples in low temperatures on glass for nearly two months.

The results were published in a paper by Sophie Smither and her colleagues at the laboratory. Titled "The survival of filoviruses in liquids, on solid substrates and in a dynamic aerosol," the study details the results of tests on two filovirus strains, the Lake Victoria marburgvirus and Zaire ebolavirus.

The viruses were placed into guinea pig tissue samples and tested for their ability to survive in different liquids and on different surfaces at various temperatures. Three samples stored at 39 degrees Fahrenheit were recovered after 26 days from glass and plastic surfaces. The Zaire strain of Ebola was active after 50 days.

Last night, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight got a jumpstart on this week's news: SUGAR!!! (Brought to you by the makers of Halloween™.) And instead of making fun of obese, diabetic, candy-gobbling Americans - which is easy, considering that we'll spend a total of $2.2 billion on the stuff this Halloween - he slammed the high-powered industry behind those spooky diabetes and obesity rates.

For a treat, Oliver offers up a video clip of the sleepy president of The Sugar Association, for instance, arguing that there's been "plenty of science that exonerates sugar, that clarifies sugar does not contribute to obesity or diabetes." Problem is, as Oliver points out, what little of such science there is usually comes from researchers who are paid gobs of money by totally unbiased groups like the Corn Refiners Association.

These kinds of groups are precisely the ones battling a new FDA proposal for an "added sugar" label, too, given how freaking much sugar is snuck into regular, non-Halloweeny foods. ("Look at Clamato juice," Oliver says. "'The Original Tomato Cocktail With Clam.' They clearly thought, 'Let's improve the taste by adding sugar.' Instead of thinking, 'Let's improve the taste by removing the clam.'")

Point is, this clip is awesome, and we heart you, too, John Oliver - especially for that brutally honest description of the circus peanut.

Columbus, Ohio - More than 100 cases of a polio-like syndrome causing full or partial paralysis of the arms or legs have been seen in children across the United States in recent months, according to doctors attending the annual meeting of the Child Neurology Society.

Symptoms have ranged from mild weakness in a single arm to complete paralysis of arms, legs, and even the muscles controlling the lungs, leading in some cases to a need for surgery to insert a breathing tube, doctors said.

The outbreak, which appears to be larger and more widespread than what has largely been previously reported by medical and news organizations, has neurologists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrambling to find out what is causing these cases and how best to treat it.

"We don't know how to treat it, and we don't know how to prevent it," said Keith Van Haren, a child neurologist at Stanford University School of Medicine. "It actually looks just like polio, but that term really freaks out the public-health people."

A severely botched Ebola case (which resulted in at least two more cases) has turned a Dallas, Texas hospital into a virtual ghost town, with its ER visits dropping 50% and revenue dropping 25% since it happened. When I called the place, the woman in the ER who answered the phone refused to even tell me what the wait time would be if I showed up in the ER (per what she said was hospital "policy"); must be a new policy, because when ABC News asked a few days before me, they got an answer of "zero wait time" in a hospital where it used to be an hour.

People are realizing that going to the hospital in the case of Patient Zero Thomas Eric Duncan did not make his situation any better and by the second time, only prolonged the inevitable while putting other people in harm's way.

Why? Because, per the nurses' own statement on the shocking events that went on in that hospital during Duncan's care, the facility was not even remotely prepared.

We have all been concerned about the implications of Genetically Modified (GM) foods. And one company that has received much controversy is Monsanto; established in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri.

Their involvement in countless controversial endeavors is nothing short than an attack on humanity!

As a refresher, let's briefly take a look at some of Monsanto's accomplishments.

• Artificial Food Substitutes such as Saccharin (artificial sweetener) - blamed for many health issues including cancer.
• Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) - One of the Greatest Pollutants to Air, Water, and Soil, partially banned in 1973 due to serious health complications including cancer.

• Dayton Project & Manhattan Project - The development of Atomic and Nuclear Weapons
• Partnered with Bayer - a chemical and pharmaceutical company
• Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) - Widely used Insecticidal, later banned in 1972 due to serious health complications including cancer as well as the near extinction of many birds including the Bald Eagle.
• Herbicide Orange (Better Known as Agent Orange) - Used during the Vietnam War, nearly 1,000,000 people were either killed or permanently damaged by its use (including US soldiers). Reportedly over 4.5 million people were exposed, and an estimated 500,000 children were later born with defects. Today, health problems continue to persist due to environmental changes resulting from the extensive use of Agent Orange.
• First to develop the Genetically Modified Plant in 1982
• Bought G.D. Searle & Company (Searle) - a pharmaceutical company which focuses on agriculture and life sciences.

We've all heard the saying, "listen to your gut." And while that advice often refers to our intuition, it should also speak to our digestion. Your gut guides your overall well-being. Quite literally, your gut is the epicenter of your mental and physical health. Yet it's all too common to experience lots of digestive issues that make a huge impact on our strength and vitality. If you want better immunity, efficient digestion, improved clarity and balance, focus on rebuilding your gut health.

I know it may seem like there's always something we could be doing better. And frankly, our quest for getting well can be downright exhausting! Sometimes our health issues can feel so big and daunting. This is especially true when it comes to serious chronic diseases. I remember getting frustrated many times. I thought to myself, for gosh sake, I'm doing everything I can to heal this disease and though I'm grateful it's still stable, why won't the sucker just go away? I give up! Then I decided to take it down a notch and focus on healing areas of my life and my body that I actually could control. My digestion had always been really weak. I got colds every year and had a list of health problems stemming from my gut. That's when the light bulb went off.I decided to forget about cancer and focus my energy on my digestive health instead. Finally, improvements I could see, feel and measure!

By supporting this mighty system, you'll see chronic health issues (like fatigue, fogginess, colds, aches and pains) diminish, and you'll feel abundant energy return. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it really isn't. I've experienced these results, and I've seen hundreds of readers do the same. Now it's your turn.

Today, we're going to cover the basics of digestive health. You'll learn what your gut does and why it's so important to keep it healthy. Then, we'll discuss how to care for your wonderful gut so that it continues to take care of glorious you. Let's dive in!

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is an insidious chemical that has crept into our food supply over the past few decades. Today HFCS represents¹ more than 40 percent of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages.

HFCS can contain anywhere from 55 to 90 percent fructose and is derived from corn, a heavily subsidized (read: cheap) crop. Manufacturers love HFCS because, especially when compared to regular sugar, it's cheaper, sweeter and produced in abundance.

Not surprisingly, HFCS's ubiquity in the 1980s correlated with the beginning of the obesity epidemic. Other factors, including increased portion sizes, certainly play a role, but the inclusion of HFCS in soft drinks and other sweetened beverages merits serious consideration as an important cause of the obesity epidemic.

A new study published in The Journal of Pain reports that 39 million people in the United States or 19 percent have persistent pain, and the incidence varies according to age and gender. The Journal of Pain is the peer-reviewed publication of the American Pain Society.

Researchers at the Washington State University College of Nursing conducted the study. They defined persistent pain as frequent or constant pain lasting longer than three months. The intent of their research was:

- Identify groups at higher risk for persistent pain

- Identify body sites, chronic conditions and disabilities associated with persistent pain

- Assess the relationship between persistent pain and anxiety, depression and fatigue

- Describe the individual experience of persistent pain.

The study was performed using data from the 2010 Quality of Life Supplement of the National Heath Interview Survey (NHIS) to calculate the prevalence of persistent pain. Results of the analysis showed that approximately 19 percent of U.S. adults reported persistent pain in 2010, and older adults were more likely to experience persistent pain than younger adults. Women also had slightly higher risk than men.

Schizophrenia is usually treated with prescription antipsychotic drugs, many of which produce severe adverse effects ^(1-6); are linked to an incentive for monetary profit benefiting pharmaceutical corporations ^(7-13); lack sufficient evidence for safety and efficacy ^{(9, 14)}; and have been grossly misused ^(15-20). Orthomolecular (nutritional) medicine provides another approach to treating schizophrenia, which involves the optimal doses of vitamin B₃-also known as niacin, niacinamide, nicotinamide, or nicotinic acid-in conjunction with an individualized protocol of multiple vitamins. The orthomolecular approach involves treating "mental disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment for the mind, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body" ⁽²¹⁾.

Evidence for the niacin treatment of schizophrenia

Vitamin B₃ as a treatment for schizophrenia is typically overlooked, which is disconcerting considering that historical evidence suggests it effectively reduces symptoms of schizophrenia, and has the added advantage, in contrast to pharmaceuticals, of mild to no adverse effects ^(22-35). After successful preliminary trials treating schizophrenia patients with niacin, pilot trials of larger samples commenced in 1952-reported in 1957 by Hoffer, Osmond, Callbeck, and Kahan. Dr. Abram Hoffer began an experiment involving 30 patients who had been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Participants were given a series of physiological and psychological tests to measure baseline status and were subsequently assigned randomly to treatment groups. Nine subjects received a placebo, 10 received nicotinic acid, and 11 received nicotinamide (the latter two are forms of vitamin B₃). All participants received treatment for 42 days, were in the same hospital, and received psychotherapy from the same group of clinicians. The two experimental groups were administered three grams of vitamin B₃ per day. Each of the three treatment groups improved, but the two vitamin B₃ groups improved more than the placebo group as compared to baseline measures. At one year follow up, 33% of patients in the placebo group remained well, and 88% of patients in the B₃ groups remained well. These results inspired many subsequent trials, and those that replicated the original method produced similarly positive results.

We've noted for some time that Ebola can be spread by aerosols to frontline healthcare workers.

The CDC is finally admitting this fact.

The CDC put out a new poster stating:

Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose, or mouth of another person. Droplets travel short distances, less than 3 feet (1 meter) from one person to another.

A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

***

Clean and disinfect commonly touched surfaces like doorknobs, faucet handles, and toys, since the Ebola virus may live on surfaces for up to several hours.