Aspartame is linked to leukemia and lymphoma in new landmark study on humans

Natural News
Ethan Evers

As few as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for leukemia in men and women, and for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men, according to new results from the longest-ever running study on aspartame as a carcinogen in humans. Importantly, this is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever completed on this topic, so it holds more weight than other past studies which appeared to show no risk. And disturbingly, it may also open the door for further similar findings on other cancers in future studies.

The most thorough study yet on aspartame - Over two million person-years

For this study, researchers prospectively analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a 22-year period. A total of 77,218 women and 47,810 men were included in the analysis, for a total of 2,278,396 person-years of data. Apart from sheer size, what makes this study superior to other past studies is the thoroughness with which aspartame intake was assessed. Every two years, participants were given a detailed dietary questionnaire, and their diets were reassessed every four years. Previous studies which found no link to cancer only ever assessed participants' aspartame intake at one point in time, which could be a major weakness affecting their accuracy.

One diet soda a day increases leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphomas

The combined results of this new study showed that just one 12-fl oz. can (355 ml) of diet soda daily leads to:

- 42 percent higher leukemia risk in men and women (pooled analysis)
- 102 percent higher multiple myeloma risk (in men only)
- 31 percent higher non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk (in men only)


These results were based on multi-variable relative risk models, all in comparison to participants who drank no diet soda. It is unknown why only men drinking higher amounts of diet soda showed increased risk for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Note that diet soda is the largest dietary source of aspartame (by far) in the U.S. Every year, Americans consume about 5,250 tons of aspartame in total, of which about 86 percent (4,500 tons) is found in diet sodas.

Confirmation of previous high quality research on animals

This new study shows the importance of the quality of research. Most of the past studies showing no link between aspartame and cancer have been criticized for being too short in duration and too inaccurate in assessing long-term aspartame intake. This new study solves both of those issues. The fact that it also shows a positive link to cancer should come as no surprise, because a previous best-in-class research study done on animals (900 rats over their entire natural lifetimes) showed strikingly similar results back in 2006: aspartame significantly increased the risk for lymphomas and leukemia in both males and females. More worrying is the follow on mega-study, which started aspartame exposure of the rats at the fetal stage. Increased lymphoma and leukemia risks were confirmed, and this time the female rats also showed significantly increased breast (mammary) cancer rates. This raises a critical question: will future, high-quality studies uncover links to the other cancers in which aspartame has been implicated (brain, breast, prostate, etc.)?

There is now more reason than ever to completely avoid aspartame in our daily diet. For those who are tempted to go back to sugary sodas as a "healthy" alternative, this study had a surprise finding: men consuming one or more sugar-sweetened sodas daily saw a 66 percent increase in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (even worse than for diet soda). Perhaps the healthiest soda is no soda at all.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23097267
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16507461
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805418


About the author:

Ethan Evers is author of the award-winning medical thriller "The Eden Prescription," in which cutting-edge researchers perfect an effective, all-natural treatment for cancer, only to be hunted down by pharmaceutical interests which will stop at nothing to protect their $80 billion cancer drug cash machine. The Eden Prescription is based on the latest science and draws on real historical events stretching back to the beginning of the "War on Cancer." Ethan has a PhD in Applied Science.

Aspartame: Safety Approved In 90 Nations, But Damages Brain

GreenMediaInfo
Sayer Ji

A new study on aspartame has the potential to reignite the decades-old controversy behind this artificial sweetener's safety, or lack thereof.  As far back as 1996, folks were writing about the potential link between aspartame and increasing brain tumor rates.[i] Indeed, its intrinsic neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity has been confirmed in the biomedical literature. And yet, aspartame has been approved for use in thousands of consumer products in over 90 countries, [ii] and is still being consumed by millions worldwide on a daily basis – despite the fact that over 40 adverse health effects of aspartame have been documented.

The new study, published in the September edition of the Journal of Bioscience and titled, "Effect of chronic exposure to aspartame on oxidative stress in the brain of albino rats," aimed to test the hypothesis that chronic consumption of aspartame may be causing neurological damage in exposed populations.
They found that chronic (90 day) administration of aspartame to rats, at ranges only 50% above what the FDA considers safe for human consumption, resulted in blood and brain tissue changes consistent with brain damage.

Aspartame is metabolized into three distinct components: aspartic acid, methanol and phenylalanine. While aspartic acid is a well-known excitotoxin, phenylalanine only presents a serious health concern to those with a genetic disorder known as phenyletonuria. Methanol, on the other hand, is far more problematic, as it is not naturally found in significant quantities in the human diet.

According to a recent review

Until 200 years ago, methanol was an extremely rare component of the human diet and is still rarely consumed in contemporary hunter and gatherer cultures. With the invention of canning in the 1800s, canned and bottled fruits and vegetables, whose methanol content greatly exceeds that of their fresh counterparts, became far more prevalent. The recent dietary introduction of aspartame, an artificial sweetener 11% methanol by weight, has also greatly increased methanol consumption.[iii]

Moreover, the aspartame metabolite methanol (also known as wood alcohol) is highly toxic and is metabolized into the known human carcinogen formaldehyde and formic acid,[iv] which is known to be highly toxic to the central nervous system. Considering the fact that the normal human body temperature is approximately 98.6 degrees Farenheit, and that aspartame will convert to its toxic metabolites at temperatures as low as 86 degrees Farenheit, the finding that aspartame is neurotoxic to animals is not a surprise. The authors of the new study surmised that the observed adverse brain changes were due to the generation of oxidative stress in brain regions.

Aspartame, of course, is a proprietary synthetic chemical not found in nature, and exists primarily because plants like stevia, which have significant, clinically-substantiated healing properties, can be grown in your back yard for free and are therefore not profitable commodities that can be produced and controlled only by a few.
But, aspartame is not the only toxic sweetener on the market. A growing body of research now shows that sucralose, known by the brand-name Splenda, is also capable of suppressing the immune system, causing inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, migraine headaches, and DNA damage.[v]

The trick is to stick with naturally occurring compounds, whose sweetness is not associated with adverse health effects. Below is a list of natural alternatives, along with the number of potential health benefits associated with each, as indexed on our website.

Which ‘Natural’ Food Companies Are Fighting the Effort to Label GMOs?

From the Trenches

Huffington Post  On Nov. 6, California voters will have the opportunity to vote on historic Proposition 37, which would mandate the labeling of genetically-engineered foods. At a time when it’s hard to get a large percentage of Americans to agree on almost anything, polls show that as many as 90 percent of us want genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) labeled. More than 40 other nations, including the entire European Union, already require disclosure. But Monsanto and its allies are dedicated to keeping consumers in the dark and are pouring tens of millions of dollars into a disinformation campaign intended to defeat Prop 37.

You might expect the biotech industry to try to block a measure that would require foods that contain GMOs to say so on their packages. After all, a growing body of scientific research is indicating that GMOs might be far more dangerous than was previously imagined. But Monsanto’s allies in the effort to defeat Prop 37 include some unexpected culprits. It can be shocking to realize that some of the most trusted names in the naturalfood world are in bed with Monsanto.

Naked Juice is owned by PepsiCo, which has donated $1.7 million to Monsanto’s efforts. Honest Tea, Odwalla and Simply Orange are owned by Coca-Cola, which has donated another million dollars. Alexia and Lightlife are owned by ConAgra, which has put in more than $1 million.

You won’t find this mentioned anywhere on the Kashi product packaging, but Kashi, as well as Gardenburger and Morningstar Farms, is owned by Kellogg, which has already coughed up more than $600,000 to defeat Prop 37.

Kashi has already been in plenty of trouble on the GMO front this year. A few months ago, a number of natural foods stores stopped carrying Kashi cereals when it came to their attention that the “soy used in most Kashi products is genetically modified, and that when the USDA tested the grains used there were found to be pesticides that are known carcinogens and hormone disruptors.”

In an attempt to defend itself, Kashi released a YouTube video that announced that:

“While it’s likely that some of our foods contain GMOs, the main reason for that is because in North America, well over 80 percent of many crops, including soybeans are grown using GMOs … Factors outside our control such as pollen drift from nearby crops

… have led to an environment where GMOs are not sufficiently controlled.”

This seemingly reasonable defense — that the only reason GMOs are found in Kashi products is because GMOs are widespread in the environment — might be valid if the problem was only trace GMOs, which lead to a product being less than 1 percent genetically engineered. But when theCornucopia Institute tested Kashi’s Go Lean cereal, which gets its protein from soy, they found that the soy was 100 percent genetically engineered.

There are other natural foods heroes whose profits are being used to try to keep us in the dark. Silk soy milk carries the “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal on its package. But Silk is owned by Dean Foods, which has donated more than a quarter million dollars to Monsanto’s efforts to defeat Prop 37.

The list of sell-outs who masquerade as bastions of organics is disappointingly long. R. W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organics are owned by Smucker, which has donated $388,000 to killing Prop 37. Cascadian Farm, Larabar and Muir Glen are owned by General Mills, which has put more than half a million dollars into the effort.

The good news is that even with large agribusiness companies purchasing natural and organic brands and then betraying consumers by funding the attack on GMO labeling, Prop 37 still stands an excellent chance of passing.

And not everyone has sold out, not by a long shot. There are still some authentic heroes in the natural food industry. Nature’s Path, Dr. Bronner’s, Nutiva and Lundberg Rice stand out among the companies that are contributing to the effort to pass Prop 37 and ensure your right to know what’s in your food. Organic Valley, Amy’s and Eden Foods are also standing up for your right to know. And the owner of a natural health website, Joseph Mercola (mercola.com), has donated nearly a million dollars to the good fight.

If you want to know more, the Cornucopia Institute has released a shopper’s guide to the companies that are donating on both sides of Prop 37.

At present, it’s not easy to know whether there are GMOs in your food. The Non-GMO Shopping Guide put out by the Institute for Responsible Technology is a great support. But the most important thing you can do is to help pass Proposition 37.

If Californians pass Prop 37 in November, it will have enormous implications to the food system throughout North America.

Ignorance, in some cases, may be bliss. But in the case of GMOs, the ignorance of not knowing what is in your food is not bliss, it’s subservience to Monsanto and its allies. And it could mean a lifetime of devastating health problems for you and your children.

It’s going to be a battle. Let’s win this one for ourselves, for the earth, and for all future generations.

Harassing the Whistleblowers

Consortium News
Ray McGovern

Exclusive: Food and Drug Administration officials reacted to suspected whistleblowing by some of its scientists, about excessive radiation from medical imaging devices, by spying on several. But the larger issue is the need to alert the public to  unnecessary risks, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.



Controversy generated by recent reporting by Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane of the New York Times about Food and Drug Administration spying on its doctors and scientists focuses on the blatant invasions of privacy, with Sen. Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, complaining of “Gestapo” tactics. But what about us?
What about the thousands of patients exposed to unnecessarily dangerous levels of radiation during mammogram screening and colonoscopies by General Electric medical imaging devices.

Frances Kelsey, whose work for the Food and Drug Administration blocked U.S. approval of the dangerous drug, Thalidomide.

As I prepare for my umpteenth (and hopefully last) scheduled scan over the past five years to check if that grapefruit-sized lymphoma tumor has left my pelvic area for good, I am relieved to remember that most of the scanning devices have had a Siemens, not a GE label.

As the Times reported, the F.D.A. spying focused on doctors who believed the agency gave shortshrift to concerns about excessive radiation coming from medical imaging devices. Lichtblau and Shane wrote:

“The extraordinary surveillance effort grew out of a bitter dispute lasting years between the scientists and their bosses at the F.D.A. over the scientists’ claims that faulty review procedures at the agency had led to the approval of medical imaging devices for mammograms andcolonoscopies that exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.
“A confidential government review in May by the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with the grievances of government workers, found that the scientists’ medical claims were valid enough to warrant a full investigation into what it termed ‘a substantial and specific danger to
public safety.’”



During the first few decades of my life, there were no such scan scams to worry about. The influence of the pharmaceutical corporations, however, was already huge — and dangerous. Often, it took courageous whistleblowers — people of integrity unwilling to betray the public trust — to prevent disaster.

Thalidomide


It has been more than 50 years since my first extended visit to Europe as a university student. Most readers will be too young to remember, but a “wonder-drug,” Thalidomide, had just come on the market. This drug gave temporary rest and relief to millions, especially prospective mothers with morning sickness and problems sleeping. It was very popular in Germany.

Stationed in Germany more than a decade later, I witnessed the human results of the horrible side effects of Thalidomide, which had become available all over Europe, and beyond. Over 10,000 babies in 46 countries were born without limbs or otherwise disfigured and disabled. Those still alive would be in their late forties/early fifties now.

How did the United States escape this plague? One whistleblower, a woman named Frances Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration saw through the charade of the drug company swindlers and stood up to it.

Although Dr. Kelsey came under extreme pressure to fall in step and approve Thalidomide, she scorned the testing that had been done by the Thalidomide manufacturer and blocked introduction of the drug into America.

For her unusual courage and integrity, President John Kennedy gave her the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Serivce in 1962, after it became clear that she had singlehandedly prevented a public health disaster from befalling us in the United States.

Dr. Kelsey will be 98 on July 24; her courage should be celebrated — particularly in the light of the behavior of our present-day F.D.A. The F.D.A.’s current commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, should be put on the griddle — and sooner rather than later.

IQ Foods: Processed Food Lowers IQ in Children, Nutritious Food Raises It

Natural Society
Anthony Gucciardi

Processed foods are the staple of far too many diets, particularly in the United States where 105 million people have either diabetes or prediabetes. These processed foods are filled with white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, artificial food colorings, and a wide variety of other toxic substances. Interestingly enough, research shows that these are some of the worst IQ foods. Given the makeup of processed foods, is it any wonder that children are suffering from IQ reduction upon introducing these foods into their diet?

IQ Foods: The Findings

British researchers uncovered the connection between processed foods and reduced IQ. They followed what 14,000 children ate and drank at the ages of 3, 4, 7, and 8.5 years of age, with answers submitted via parents through questionnaires. The researchers found that if children were consuming a processed diet at age 3, IQ decline could begin over the next five years. The study found that by age 8, the children had suffered the IQ decline.

On the contrary, children who ate a nutrient-rich diet were found to increase their IQ over the 3 year period. The foods considered nutrient-rich by the researchers were most likely conventional fruits and vegetables. If children were to eat a wide variety of organic produce, superfoods, mineral-rich plants, and perhaps even consume a food-based multivitamin, the researchers would most likely see a substantial IQ increase. This eating plan would also benefit the children — or even adults — in other aspects of their lives as well, such as better overall health & well-being.

Processed foods have been known to wreak havoc on the body for quite some time. One joint American and Spanish study has even found that junk food products, particularly those containing trans fats, can make healthy young men infertile by damaging their sperm. Another study, conducted by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, reported that both junk food and fast food consumption can bring on depression. The link was so strong, in fact, that those who consumed fast food were 51% more likely to be depressed. It isn’t surprising that some of the worst IQ foods are the same foods that cause numerous health complications.

America's Mad Cow Crisis

PRWatch
John Stauber

Americans might remember that when the first mad cow was confirmed in the United States in December, 2003, it was major news. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been petitioned for years by lawyers from farm and consumer groups I worked with to stop the cannibal feeding practices that transmit this horrible, always fatal, human and animal dementia. When the first cow was found in Washington state, the government said it would stop such feeding, and the media went away. But once the cameras were off and the reporters were gone nothing substantial changed.

In the United States, dairy calves are still taken from their mothers and fed the blood and fat of dead cattle. This is no doubt a way to infect them with the mad cow disease that has now been incubating here for decades, spread through such animal feeding practices. No one knows how the latest dairy cow was infected, the fourth confirmed in the United States. Maybe it was nursed on cow's blood. Perhaps it was fed feed containing cattle fat with traces of cattle protein. Or perhaps there is a mad cow disease in pigs in the United States, which simply has not been found yet, because pigs are not tested for it at all, even though pigs are fed both pig and cattle byproducts, and then the blood, fat and other waste parts of these pigs are fed to cattle.

All these U.S. cattle feeding methods are long banned and illegal in other countries that suffered through but eventually dealt properly with mad cow disease. Here, rather than stopping the transmission of the disease by stopping the cannibal feeding, mad cow is simply covered up with inadequate testing and very adequate public relations. US cattle are still fed mammalian blood, fat and protein, risking human deaths and threatening the long term safety of human blood products, simply to provide the U.S. livestock industry with a cheap protein source and a cheap way to get rid of dead animal waste.

I began researching this issue around 1989, long before the disease was confirmed to have jumped from cattle to the people eating them, as announced by the British government in 1996. In 1997, I co-authored Mad Cow USA, warning that the disease was likely already here and spreading, since the animal cannibalism that caused its outbreak in Britain and spread it to other countries was actually more widespread in the United States than anywhere.

The Army Is Stocking Up On A Ton Of Anti-Radiation Pills To Protect Troops

Military and Defense

While checking out the Federal Business Opportunities network, we came across a listing by the Defense Logistics Agency— the Troop Support branch — seeking a supply of potassium iodide tablets.

Scrolling through the online solicitation, you'll see the U.S. Army Medical Material Agency wants to ensure "critical operational forces are protected in the event of nuclear fallout."

The FDA recommends taking potassium iodide in radiation emergencies to block cancer-causing radioiodines that would otherwise be absorbed by the body's thyroid — the gland in your neck that regulates adrenaline and metabolism, along with doing a bunch of other stuff we need to survive.

The U.S. has bought potassium iodide tablets in the past, and is now looking ahead to scenarios, possibly spurred by last year's Fukushima crisis.

As the federal solicitation is quick to point out, "The recent earthquake in Japan in March of 2011 and the resultant nuclear crisis has renewed interest in this item."

The pills are also used in case of terrorist-related release of radioactivity from nuclear weapons or dirty-bombs, says Anbex Inc., the only FDA-approved manufacturer of the pills.

Of course, potassium iodide would also come in handy if there were to be an airstrike against a target laden will nuclear material, say, like the sites in Iran. One of the big concerns surrounding the practical devastation of those nuclear facilities is the radiation it will unleash into the surroundings.

Destroying one of the most likely Iranian targets, the 1000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant, would create just such a concern.

The 1,000-megawatt reactor is what was in place at Chernobyl at the time of its meltdown, and though there were four in the Ukraine, the radiation exposure from blowing up even a single reactor would be immense.

But how immense, no one is really quite sure.

When Israel destroyed Iraq's Osiris 70-megawatt nuclear reactor in a bold 1981 attack, the plant hadn't yet been stocked with nuclear fuel so there was no risk of radiation.

But an attack on Iran's Bushehr plant, which has been stocked with radioactive fuel rods since 2010, would be an incalculable mess.

While the potassium iodide tablets wanted by the Army don't necessarily mean a thing, they'll sure be nice to have if an attack against Iran eventually goes down.

And until that actually happens, the only clue we'll have about what the Pentagon may be planning is in small inconclusive supply requests like this.

FDA Rejects Monumental BPA Ban

Natural Society
Mike Barrett

It was reported not too long ago that the Food and Drug Administration would make a decision on the banning of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA). Now, the agency has finally come to a decision, and unsurprisingly, it has decided that there is not enough scientific evidence supporting for the ban of BPA – that is to say, BPA will not be banned from use in food products, plastic packaging, and personal care products.

On Friday the agency made the decision due to lack of scientific evidence to justify the new restrictions, despite tons of evidence showcasing BPAs dangers. The FDA’s problem? Much of the research was performed using mice, and so they claimed that the findings don’t relate to humans.

“While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans,” the FDA says.

But it seems that many other nations and companies seem to disagree with the FDA, in that they have already taken action in banning or removing the chemical from use. Canada banned BPA from baby bottles in 2007, while the European Union, Turkey, and other countries banned BPA from baby bottled in 2008. What’s more, various companies such as Toys “R” Us and even Walmart claimed to have discontinued use of BPA in children’s items.

While the FDA continues to fall behind many nations in the ban due to ‘lack of scientific evidence’, it seems that the agency secretly doesn’t want the ban altogether. The recent decision made by the FDA was prompted only due to a lawsuit against it after they failed to respond to petition requesting the ban. It took the FDA more than 180 days to respond to the National Resources Defense Council’s petition, which is surpassing a deadline it must reach regarding response to petitions.

BPA has been shown to prompt hyperactivity and depression in young girls, while also being linked to breast cancer in more than 130 studies. Infertility and fertility defects are also caused by BPA exposure. The chemical is used so widely that it has been found in the urine of nearly 93 percent of Americans, with one study finding that eating canned soup can spike urinary bisphenol-A levels by 1,200 percent compared to fresh soup.

Dietary Supplement Industry Threatened By Anti-Consumer Legislation

Somewhat Reasonable
Kendall Antekeier 

United States Senator Dick Durbin has introduced legislation that could essentially slaughter the entire dietary supplement industry.

Durbin presented S. 1310, “The Dietary Supplement Labeling Act,” under the pretenses of improving the “safety of dietary supplements.”

However, the bill actually grants the FDA overreaching authority over the approval and disapproval of dietary supplements and supplement ingredients.


If passed, the legislation will require manufacturers to register dietary supplement products with the FDA and change the labels on the supplements to meet federal requirements.

In the meantime, the FDA would decide, without rule or reason and in correlation with the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which dietary supplements and dietary supplements ingredients are “safe,” and would make a self-defined list of “dietary supplements” or “supplement ingredients” that need to be regulated by the FDA.

Dr. Tammera J. Karr says that duo has an agenda beyond protecting consumer safety:

“Given the FDA’s profound bias against supplements, and the skewed, anti-science recommendations of the IOM’s recent vitamin D report, these are hardly trustworthy sources.”

A petition letter against the act shares Karr’s belief that “consumer safety” is not the motivation behind the act and is, frankly, an excuse. It reads:

“Dietary supplements are already among the safest consumer products around. In recent years, the Centers for Disease Control have reported zero deaths from consumption of dietary supplements and during the last 25 years, more deaths have been reported from bee stings, lightning strikes, or horse-riding accidents than from supplements. This compares extremely favorably to FDA-approved drugs, licensed hospitals, and licensed medical doctors that account for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year! Clearly, there is no need for this legislation.”

In her article, Karr quotes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the national Poison Data System (NPS) which also state that “botanicals and dietary supplements are the safest products we can use for our health.”

Useless Studies, Real Harm

New York Times
Carl Elliott

LAST month, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a scathing reassessment of a 12-year-old research study of Neurontin, a seizure drug made by Pfizer. The study, which had included more than 2,700 subjects and was carried out by Parke-Davis (now part of Pfizer), was notable for how poorly it was conducted. The investigators were inexperienced and untrained, and the design of the study was so flawed it generated few if any useful conclusions. Even more alarming, 11 patients in the study died and 73 more experienced “serious adverse events.” Yet there have been few headlines, no demands for sanctions or apologies, no national bioethics commissions pledging to investigate. Why not?

One reason is that the study was not quite what it seemed. It looked like a clinical trial, but as litigation documents have shown, it was actually a marketing device known as a “seeding trial.” The purpose of seeding trials is not to advance research but to make doctors familiar with a new drug.

In a typical seeding trial, a pharmaceutical company will identify several hundred doctors and invite them to take part in a research study. Often the doctors are paid for each subject they recruit. As the trial proceeds, the doctors gradually get to know the drug, making them more likely to prescribe it later.

In an age of for-profit clinical research, this is the new face of scandal. Pharmaceutical companies promote their drugs with pseudo-studies that have little if any scientific merit, and patients naïvely sign up, unaware of the ways in which they are being used. Nobody really knows how often companies conduct such trials, but they appear with alarming regularity in pharmaceutical marketing documents. In the marketing plan for the antidepressant Lexapro for the 2004 fiscal year, Forest Laboratories described 102 Phase IV trials — the classification under which seeding trials fall — in a section labeled “Marketing Tactics.”

Oversight bodies like the Food and Drug Administration generally don’t view seeding trials as research scandals: seeding trials are not illegal, and the drugs in question have already received F.D.A. approval. But even after particularly egregious seeding trials have been exposed, the F.D.A. has not issued sanctions. Take the notorious Advantage study, a seeding trial of the pain reliever Vioxx conducted by Merck. According to a 2008 report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, litigation documents show that the Advantage study was conceived and managed by Merck’s marketing department. Three subjects died in the Advantage trial; five more subjects experienced heart attacks. Oversight bodies should treat the Advantage study as a violation of research ethics.

How can studies that endanger human subjects attract so little scrutiny? Forty years ago, when most clinical research took place in academic settings, the main dangers to research subjects came in service to genuine scientific aims. A large regulatory apparatus was developed to protect human subjects from the ambitions of overweening academic researchers. In the early 1990s, however, pharmaceutical companies realized that it was faster and less expensive to conduct trials in the private sector, where the driving force is not knowledge, but profit. And the regulatory apparatus designed for the old era has proved woefully inadequate for the new one.

Treatments for Radiation Poisoning

Washington's Blog

You've heard that potassium iodide helps protect against some types of radiation.

In fact, it only protects against iodine 131 poisoning (and, if not needed, may cause severe adverse reactions in some individuals).

But there are actually different treatments for different types of radiation.

The following chart provided by the Food and Drug Administration summarizes the treatments for exposure to various radioactive elements (click chart for better image):

 Prussian blue is taken to minimize damage from cesium. As FDA notes:

The FDA has determined that the 500 mg Prussian blue capsules, when manufactured under the conditions of an approved New Drug Application (NDA), can be found safe and effective for the treatment of known or suspected internal contamination with radioactive cesium, radioactive thallium, or non-radioactive thallium. This decision is based on a careful review of published literature articles containing reports, data, and experiences of people who were exposed to high levels of thallium or cesium-137 and were treated effectively with Prussian blue.

***
Prussian blue works using a mechanism known as ion exchange. Cesium or thallium that have been absorbed into the body are removed by the liver and passed into the intestine and are then re-absorbed into the body (entero-hepatic circulation). Prussian blue works by trapping thallium and cesium in the intestine, so that they can be passed out of the body in the stool rather than be re-absorbed. If persons are exposed to radioactive cesium, radioactive thallium, or non-radioactive thallium, taking Prussian blue may reduce the risk of death and major illness from radiation or poisoning.

And see this.

GMO created foods may be used as a biological weapon

Examiner
 Kenneth Schortgen Jr.

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.

A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.
Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs.  Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex.  The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.
The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”

Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

Besides the creation and use of GMO corn and other staples in places like South America, Mexico, and Africa, an interesting data point was discovered in the US shortly after GMO foods (BT-Corn) were approved in 1996.  Since that time, birth rates in the US have been falling, and accelerating in decline since 1999, just three years after the introduction of the GMO to the food supply.

Do you like this article?

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.
A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.

Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs.  Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex.  The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.
The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”

Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

Besides the creation and use of GMO corn and other staples in places like South America, Mexico, and Africa, an interesting data point was discovered in the US shortly after GMO foods (BT-Corn) were approved in 1996.  Since that time, birth rates in the US have been falling, and accelerating in decline since 1999, just three years after the introduction of the GMO to the food supply.

Since GMO food is not considered a natural commodity for consumption by the UN's regulatory body (Codex), and scientists have purposefully introduced spermacidal modifications into corn for the purpose of controlling world populations, then unequivocally, one of the many purposes of GMO created foods is for the use as a biological weapon.

Many global foundations have been pushing for the expansion of GMO foods, especially corn, soybeans, and rice to help end hunger and poverty around the world, and primarily in third world countries.  The Gates Foundation, the Rockfeller Foundation, and former UN Chief Kofi Annan's Agra organization are just three powerful entities supplying funds and promotions to expand GMO use in many countries.

There is also an ongoing battle between citizens and the FDA to demand labelling of GMO based food products, but to this point, the government agency has been able to keep the public in the dark on what is in their food.  Since GMO based products are not considered food under UN regulations, many questions still remain as to the reasons why the FDA allows them in consumable foods at all.

Creating a food source or seed meant to be eaten by man as a dietary staple which has been modified to bring sterility or outright birth control is in essence, creating and distributing a biological weapon for the sole purpose of lowering birth rates and populations in one or more locations.  Since GMO based products are not considered food according to the UN Codex, but are being allowed into the world's diet as a consumable, creates many questions as to the real purpose of expanding GMO use into the food supply.

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How Safe is Your Food? GMO, Foodborne Illnesses and Biotechnology

 Global Research

by Rady Ananda

A Review of GRAIN's report on Food Safety

GRAIN has released a global report, Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. Peoples’ Health, showing how governments and corporations use “food safety” to manipulate market access and control. Rather than making food safer, domestic and trade rules “force open markets, or backdoor ways to limit market access.” Highlighting aspects of the report, GRAIN states:

“Across the world, people are getting sick and dying from food like never before. Governments and corporations are responding with all kinds of rules and regulations, but few have anything to do with public health. The trade agreements, laws and private standards used to impose their version of ‘food safety’ only entrench corporate food systems that make us sick and devastate those that truly feed and care for people, those based on biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and local markets.”

Canadian raw milk producer Michael Schmidt makes a brief statement about these fake food safety laws that violate food freedom in this video (though he has confused it with food sovereignty, which is the right of a nation to determine food safety standards and appropriate ag technologies despite trade agreements): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGa04mNr5p0&

 

In the next video, Paul Noble discusses raw milk and government intrusion. “If God had intended us to drink pasteurized milk, he would have put a pasteurizer on the cow.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miPj0xeeaus

 

GRAIN notes, “During US President Obama's visit to India in November 2010, Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar made it clear that the United States can produce all the scientific studies it wants, and they will be respectfully reviewed, but India will not import US dairy products that offend domestic religious sensitivities.”

That corporations control governments is undeniable, and we see this with the Food Safety Modernization Act. On May 4th, citing the FSMA for its authority, the US Food and Drug Administration declared it can seize food without evidence of contamination. This blatantly violates the U.S. Constitution protecting citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.

In its 37-page report, GRAIN spends time showing how bilateral trade agreements inhibit developing nations from controlling imports and exports. Rules generated by the World Trade Organization, in the name of food safety, “do little to protect public health, serving only corporate growth imperatives and profit margins.” Several specific examples are given. (To follow developing and ongoing bilateral trade agreements, visit Bilaterals.org.)

But strict food standards disappear when it comes to genetically modified foods:

“At the trade negotiating table, the US government is well known –and feared– for pushing lax standards on genetically modified foods. Indeed, a diplomatic cable uncovered by Wikileaks shows that the George W. Bush administration pressured the French government to ease its stance against GMOs. In a 2007 cable, the US ambassador to France went so far as to suggest that ‘we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this [acceptance of GMOs] is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.’ He added: ‘The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory.’

“Such ‘diplomacy’ is for the clear and direct benefit of Monsanto, DuPont and other agricultural biotechnology corporations that do not like foreign countries banning GM seeds or foods, much less requiring labels that inform consumers of the presence of GM ingredients. US firms, especially the members of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, religiously use FTA talks by Washington officials as a platform to secure market access for GMOs through aggressive regulatory reforms.”

Though the FDA makes a big deal of improper labeling, it refuses to label genetically modified foods in the US. This only serves biotech corporations, since 95% of the population wants GMO labeling.

“Besides GMOs,” GRAIN continues, “US trade policy is also seen as destabilising other countries' sovereignty over food safety and health matters, insofar as Washington regularly demands relaxation of rules against the import of US farm products that others deem risky, such as beef (BSE, hormones), veal (hormones), chicken (chlorine) and pork (swine flu).”

The report goes on to cover the growing halal food market, animal welfare, and transnational supermarkets. Mentioning Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, GRAIN writes:

“With the pesticide industry so intimately involved in developing and implementing supermarket standards, it’s hardly surprising that pesticide contamination remains prevalent on supermarket produce. Tests done by Greenpeace in China in 2008 and 2009 on popular vegetables and fruit found far more serious pesticide pollution on those collected from Walmart and the other major supermarkets than on those collected at wet markets.”

GRAIN also focuses on the rising number of indigenous movements resisting “corporate food safety” from the jungles of the South, to rural Maine towns declaring food sovereignty, to major urban centers across the globe. Like a feedback loop, these small, localized movements foster a growing sense of self-rule:

“The Korean people's resistance to US beef has grown into an expression of profound distrust toward Korea's system of representational democracy, including the state's relationship with the US, not an irrational fear of prions. In Australia, the campaign has been more about keeping Australian food within Australian hands, a concern that many peoples across the world share with regard to governance and control of their own country's food supplies.

“As to anti-GMO struggles, they are as diverse as the anti-US beef campaigns, but they have also been about profound issues of democracy, the survival of local cultures and food systems against the onslaught of Western "solutions", about keeping seeds and knowledge alive in communities’ hands and challenging whole models of development.”

Recognizing that super-hygienic, sterile food destroys probiotics, the raw food movement is taking off in industrialized nations:

“Many producer organisations and consumers groups, not to mention large movements like Slow Food, are convinced that biodiversity and ecological complexity – as opposed to extreme hygiene – are the keys to healthy and stable systems. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all. Of course, these sounder approaches to food safety also rely on short distribution circuits, getting food from the farm or the small-scale processing plant into people's homes through less complex, more direct distribution schemes (food clubs, all sorts of community-support agriculture systems, co-ops, and so on).”

Heat destroys enzymes; cooked milk lacks the probiotics that make milk a natural wholesome food. The U.S. requires that milk be pasteurized if sold across state lines. Not only that, but the same milk is adulterated with genetically modified ingredients and antibiotics, both of which are fed to the cows and which transfers into the milk.

GRAIN concludes that “we may want to stop talking about food safety altogether and assert instead our own demands for food quality, or something similarly more holistic. Food safety, or food quality in broader terms, is a ground on which big corporate agriculture and supermarket cultures cannot outperform small producers and local markets. The challenge is to ensure that the small and the local can remain alive and turn today's heightened concerns for food safety in our favour.”

The report is timely and relevant and a must-read for those who want a global picture of the move to control the world's food.

Further Reading:

F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

David Gumpert, Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights

Rady Ananda specializes in Natural Resources and administers the sites, Food Freedom and COTO Report.

Top Government Vaccine Researcher Indicted For Fraud, Austism Research Now In Question

The Intel Hub
By Alexander Higgins and Alex Thomas

A federal government scientist, whose research the CDC and other federal government agencies have relied on to assure the public that the mercury filled vaccines that we are forced to give to our children are safe has been indicted for money laundering and mail fraud.

In the wake of widespread breakouts of autism, immune defects, cancer and cell damage being suffered in many people who have been forced to give vaccines to their children, various independent citizen groups have launched community awareness campaigns and conducted their own independent research into the safety of the vaccines.

All research carried out by Dr. Poul Thorsen is now in question. The fact that this man has been exposed as a complete fraud should essentially discredit his research which the CDC has used to strengthen their claims that Thimerosal is safe and has no link to autism.

The actual indictment states the scientist was “aided and abetted by others known and unknown to the grand jury”.

However, it does not take a rocket scientist to read between the lines and realize those unknown others may very well be the giant pharmaceuticals companies and corrupt government officials in the CDC and the FDA who are on Big Pharma’s payroll and seem quite happy to force poison and murder upon the masses in exchange for a fat paycheck and their cozy lifestyles.

A press release on PR News wire points us to an indictment of the CDC vaccine research.

Vaccine-Autism Researcher Indicted for Fraud

SILVER SPRING, Md., April 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Based on last week’s indictment of vaccine-autism researcher Dr. Poul Thorsen for money laundering and mail fraud, the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD), a Maryland-based non-profit organization, is calling for further investigation related to the incident.

Thorsen, a Danish scientist, has already been cited for academic misconduct by Aarhus University in Denmark and is now charged with embezzling a $1 million grant for autism from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  For several years, Thorsen was involved in influential studies defending the controversial use of Thimerosal (about 50% mercury by weight) as a preservative in several vaccines.

Thimerosal has been linked to autism and other neurological diseases by numerous studies.  Dr. Paul G. King, Scientific Advisor for CoMeD, explains, “We need to consider the ever-growing body of toxicity studies linking the mercury in Thimerosal to severe neurological deficits, like autism, and to immune-system and mitochondrial damage. Such studies have shown that the level of Thimerosal in vaccines is not safe.”

As U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “Grant money for disease research is a precious commodity. When grant funds are stolen, we lose not only the money, but also the opportunity to better understand and cure debilitating diseases.”

According to CoMeD, U.S. health agencies have relied upon these now questionable Danish studies to sanction the use of Thimerosal.  CoMeD registered its concerns about Thorsen and his influence on these studies in a groundbreaking letter to Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General the Department of Health and Human Services, on September 15, 2010. An international community of researchers and advocates signed onto the CoMeD letter.
…..
Now, CoMeD is calling for an independent investigation into the scientific validity of all Danish vaccine-autism studies conducted during Thorsen’s tenure and into the possible inappropriate involvement of employees at the CDC.  Further, CoMeD is calling for the retraction of the 2004 Institute of Medicine report rejecting the causal relationship between Thimerosal and autism, which relied upon the Danish studies in which Thorsen participated.Read The Entire Article

Mercury Free Drugs has published the full indictment which starts of as follows:

Beginning on a date unknown, but at least by in or about February 2004, and continuing until in or about February 2010, in the Northern District of Georgia and elsewhere the defendant, POULT HORSEN aided and abetted by others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, did knowingly devise and intend to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud, and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and by omission of material facts, well knowing and having reason to know that said pretenses, representations, and promises were and would be false and fraudulent when made and caused to be made and that said omissions were and would be material.

Beginning in or about 2000 1 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilit awarded grant money to Denmark for research involving infant disabilities, autism, genetic disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome. The CDC awarded the grant to fund studies of the relationship between autism and the exposure to vaccines, the relationship between cerebral palsy and infection during pregnancy, and the relationship between developmental outcomes and fetal alcohol exposure.

FDA claims no need to test Pacific fish for radioactivity

Editor's note:  Industry loves the "science" conducted by Federal Agencies

Anchorage Daily News

JAPAN MELTDOWN: Ocean too huge, distance too far for concern.

North Pacific fish are so unlikely to be contaminated by radioactive material from the crippled nuclear plant in Japan that there's no reason to test them, state and federal officials said this week.

Even with dangerous levels of radiation reported recently just off the coast from the Fukushima reactor complex, the ocean is so huge and Alaska fisheries so far away that there is no realistic threat, said FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey. The Food and Drug Administration has oversight of the nation's food supplies.

The state's food safety program manager, Ron Klein of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have demonstrated that Alaskans have no cause for worry.