But as the writer says, mis-information will.
Always get the facts!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Does the Emperor have any clothes?
The 2.5 million health professions who are not allopathic doctors and who are authorized to deliver direct care to the public are not well served by this model.
Health Care Industry Spent $445M on Federal Lobbying in 2007, Kaiser Health Policy Report
Health care interests spent $445 million on federal lobbying in 2007--more than any other sector of the economy--to finish as the top spender for the second consecutive year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, CQ HealthBeat reports. A more specific breakdown of 20 industries that spent the most on lobbying in 2007, pharmaceutical and medical products companies rank first with $227 million in spending, while health insurance companies spent the second-most at $138 million. Hospitals and nursing homes spent $91 million, ranking fifth; while health professionals spent $70 million, ranking 15th; and HMOs/health services spent $52 million, ranking 19th.
Among specific organizations or companies, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America spent the third-most at $22.1 million, the American Medical Association spent the fourth-most at $22.1 million and the American Hospital Association was fifth, spending $19.7 million. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent the most of any organization ($53 million), followed by General Electric ($23.6 million).
According to the CRP, the pharmaceutical industry has spent $1.3 billion on federal lobbying in the last decade, more than any other industry. In addition, the drug industry's reported lobbying increased by 25% from 2006 to 2007. Lobbying firm Patton Boggs, whose clients include Bristol-Myers Squibb and Hoffman-La Roche, reported $41.9 million in 2007 revenue—an increase of 20% over 2006--and the most among Washington, D.C.-area firms
Common drugs hasten decline in elderly
I do not know why this should be a news item because the facts on these drugs were 'in' even before they got the FDA nod to set off the sales engine.
I have yet to see someone being prescribed these drugs to know the side effects or the nutritional deficiencies caused by the drugs, or the problems caused by the chemical soup created in the body because of poly-pharmacy.
Poly-pharmacy is much too prevalent in, especially, the elderly population.
For each of the drug class noted in this article there is a totally natural treatment. Not only is the treatment natural, it corrects the problem that causes the symptom, unless there is a very specific functional core issue.
I wonder just why prescribers aren't looking elsewhere for treatment options. I also wonder why prescribers aren't looking more into the facts of the chemistry they are creating inside the bodies of their patients.
Status quo, you know, that is Latin for 'the mess we're in.' -Ronald Reagan
I have yet to see someone being prescribed these drugs to know the side effects or the nutritional deficiencies caused by the drugs, or the problems caused by the chemical soup created in the body because of poly-pharmacy.
Poly-pharmacy is much too prevalent in, especially, the elderly population.
For each of the drug class noted in this article there is a totally natural treatment. Not only is the treatment natural, it corrects the problem that causes the symptom, unless there is a very specific functional core issue.
I wonder just why prescribers aren't looking elsewhere for treatment options. I also wonder why prescribers aren't looking more into the facts of the chemistry they are creating inside the bodies of their patients.
Status quo, you know, that is Latin for 'the mess we're in.' -Ronald Reagan
By Julie Steenhuysen, May 3, 2008
Elderly people who took commonly prescribed drugs for incontinence, allergy or high blood pressure walked more slowly and were less able to take care of themselves than others not taking the drugs, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
They said people who took drugs that block acetylcholine -- a chemical messenger in the nervous system critical for memory -- functioned less well than their peers.
"These results were true even in older adults who have normal memory and thinking abilities," said Dr. Kaycee Sink of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, who led the study of 3,000 people of whom 40 percent were taking more than one anticholinergic drug.
"The effect is essentially that of a three- to four-year increase in age. So someone who is 75 in our study and taking at least one moderately anticholinergic medication is at a similar functional level to a 78 to 79-year-old," Sink said in an e-mail.
Sink's findings, presented at American Geriatrics Society Meeting in Washington, add to a growing body of research that suggests these so-called anticholinergic medications can hasten functional and cognitive declines in elderly people.
Some of the most common such drugs in the study included the blood pressure drug nifedipine (sold as Adalat or Procardia), the stomach antacid ranitidine or Zantac, both with mild or moderate anticholinergic properties, and Pfizer Inc's incontinence drug tolterodine or Detrol, which is highly anticholinergic.
"The tricky part ... is that many useful drugs from many different classes of medications have anticholinergic properties," Sink said.
She said in many cases newer drugs are available that do not have these effects and said doctors should look out for them for elderly patients.
MEMORY DECLINE
Dr. Jack Tsao, a neurologist with the U.S. Navy, reported last month at a American Academy of Neurology meeting that elderly people who took anticholinergic drugs had a 50 percent greater rate of memory decline than people in a long-term study who did not take the drugs.
Sink studied the effects of taking multiple anticholinergic drugs on walking speed, basic activities such as dressing, eating, taking care of personal hygiene, grooming, and harder activities like shopping, cooking and managing money on her test subjects whose average age was 78.
The researchers found that the more anticholinergic drugs people had in their systems, the worse their physical function, based on reports from people in the study and on independent measures of their performance.
In a separate study this month in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Sink found that older nursing home residents who took drugs for dementia and incontinence at the same time had a 50 percent faster decline in function than those treated only for dementia.
"I would encourage patients to bring in a list of everything they take (even over-the-counter medications) to their doctor and have them review it at least yearly," Sink said. "Physicians should try to decrease anticholinergic burden whenever possible."
(Editing by Alan Elsner and Maggie Fox)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Get Out and Green Your Garden
Well, once again I have the esteemed pleasure of starting up my garden up here at 2650 feet above sea level with the help of the good guys at TerraCycle.
All I have to say it that their wide variety of green gardening solutions needs to be at the top of your list!
All I have to say it that their wide variety of green gardening solutions needs to be at the top of your list!
Worms + garbage = green success
Story Highlights• Experts say organic fertilizer market growing rapidly
• Horticulturists: Bugs eat up harmful organisms, make for improved garden
• One company chief says it's fun to make millions, "while saving the world"
(CNN) -- Add heaps of red worms to mountains of raw, rotting garbage. Then collect the worms' feces, brew it into a liquid, and squeeze it into a used soda bottle.
Sound like a twisted fourth-grade boy's concoction for messing with his sister? Not quite. Rather, it is TerraCycle's formula for success in the growing, if messy, organic fertilizer business.
Sales of organic products, especially food, have surged of late. But the National Gardening Association estimates just 5 percent of the $8.5 billion U.S. fertilizer and insecticide industry is all-natural, with uncertainty about what "organic" means muddying the picture, according to experts.
"Everybody and his cousin wants to go green these days, and in my view, it's about time," said gardening association research director Bruce Butterfield, citing a national survey conducted by Harris Interactive for his group. The study found surging interest in organic gardening out of sync with actual use of all-natural fertilizers. "If I had to grade homeowners on how environmentally responsible they are [gardening and landscaping], they failed."
That may be changing, with market researchers Freedonia Group estimating 10 percent annual growth for the organic fertilizer market, twice the projected growth for all lawn and garden goods.
With its unique reused packaging, pervasive product placement and rapid growth, TerraCycle is among several companies aiming to make a positive environmental impact -- and a buck.
"We're not doing this to save the environment," said co-founder and CEO Tom Szaky, 25, a Hungarian-born, Canadian-bred Princeton drop-out whose company was recently recognized as having a "net zero" negative impact by the nonprofit environmental group, Zerofootprint. "We're doing this to show you can make a lot of money while helping save the environment."
The 'organic' market
Worms' ground-grubbing, waste-eating ways are legendary in both horticultural and waste-management circles. California's Integrated Waste Management Board ranked "Keep worms in your office," No. 2 on last fall's top 10 list of ways to recycle on the job. But worms are hardly the only creatures working in the organic fertilizer business.
Chickens are partly to thank for reportedly rising sales of "Cockadoodle DOO," while fish provide the fodder for the Neptune's Harvest line of organic fertilizers, to cite two of many examples.
Horticulturists note, too, that "good" bugs can eat up harmful organisms to improve a garden's health. Plus, scores of other non-animal but all-natural materials -- from alfalfa to zinc sulfate -- are often used to invigorate plants.
Going "all natural" outdoors -- rather than injecting chemicals into plants and the soil -- makes sense, said Jody Payne, a horticulturist and curator at the New York Botanical Garden.
"It's just like thinking about fast food: You're much better off eating carrots and broccoli and fresh roasted chicken, and staying away from anything that's processed," said Payne, noting that natural microbes protect plants by targeting dangerous pathogens. "Plus, organic fertilizers work over a longer period of time [than chemical fertilizers]."
But buyers of "organic" fertilizer don't necessarily get what they bargained for, said Dave DeCou, executive director of the Organic Materials Review Institute, a private non-profit group that certifies organic products. Individual states, while they coordinate efforts through the Association of American Feed Control Officials, decide whether a fertilizer can be deemed "organic."
Such labels have existed for decades, with some companies holding firm to their "organic" brand even as standards have gotten tougher.
"People think, 'I can use that and it'll [help grow organic food] like what I buy in the store. But it's not,'" said DeCou, adding some officials have created a higher-standard label noting "organic inputs" were used. "Businesses are actually selling products that often cannot [satisfy] the organic definition."
A dirty business
Such regulatory confusion and business battles have created "tension between the old guard and the new guys," said DeCou. That has made it challenging for young companies like TerraCycle, which for years survived month-to-month off winnings from business plan competitions and the sporadic generosity of "angel" investors.
Many of TerraCycle's breakthroughs came out of necessity, albeit conveniently married to its pro-environment, anti-waste mantra. Once, when short on cash, TerraCycle placed liquid fertilizer in used, plastic soda bottles scooped off the streets rather than buy new or recycled bottles.
That packaging is now its most distinctive feature. Even the spray-tops are half-price leftovers from other manufacturers, while the boxes used to transport bottles are cast-off misprints. All labels, however, are custom-made.
"[Sometimes] we have no other choice and have to come up with a way to solve a problem," said Szaky. "If people just commit themselves to it [and] think outside the box, the solution is almost always there ... Every time someone says it's impossible, that's just more fuel to make it work."
Paced by its enthusiastic leader, TerraCycle has emerged as an eco-capitalist success story. Placing 30,000 gallons of worm fertilizing brew into 50,000 bottles a week, its products can be found in 7,000 locations, including CVS, Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores. Having grossed around $500,000 in 2005 (five times its inaugural year's sales), Szaky estimates 2007 revenues -- fueled by expansion into Target and elsewhere -- may jump from more than $1.5 million in 2006 to $5 million.
Still, TerraCycle is not alone in its mission or ambition. Fellow upstart Organic Growing Systems cited increased demand in announcing plans last month to double production of its fertilizers. Larger companies have also entered the fray, including Spectrum Brands' "Garden Safe" line and Miracle-Gro's "Organic Sense" range of products. And Dennis Blank, editor of Organic Business News, notes that Chinese firms have increasingly become a force in the organic fertilizer market.
"You have a lot of growth, [especially] as more and more [vendors] that historically tried to sell to organic farmers target the home marketplace," said DeCou.
These companies generally share a focus on boosting their bottom lines while doing their part for the environment. That unique altruistic/capitalistic mix excites Szaky, a born entrepreneur who launched five businesses before his 20th birthday.
"People ... enjoy being part of a company that can make millions while saving the world," said Szaky, likely reflecting the views of many of his organic fertilizing competitors. "It's all about the excitement of growing something."
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/01/organic.fertilizer/index.html
Student educates himself, loses 180 pounds
This has to be one of the good news stories, but probably one very few have read or even heard about.
The work of our organization has been, and continues to be education, and educating you to take an active role in your own health.
You can use this as one example, one that works!
The work of our organization has been, and continues to be education, and educating you to take an active role in your own health.
You can use this as one example, one that works!
Story Highlights
Brandon Hollas grew up drinking lots of sodas, eating sweets and nachos
He knew very little about nutrition or portion control until his weight hit 380 lbs
Hollas lost 180 lbs in four years after teaching himself about diet and fitness
This month, he'll graduate with his master's and marry his college sweetheart
By Jackie Adams, CNN
WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (CNN) -- Gathering together for old-fashioned, home-cooked meals was just a way of life for Brandon Hollas, who was raised on his family's farm in Cameron, Texas.
Eating healthy and portion control didn't often make its way into conversations at their dinner table. But Hollas, 25, does remember eating a lot of food.
"Along with great home cooking ... I could drink a six-pack of Dr Pepper," said Hollas. "I would eat snack cakes and for lunch at school, we were allowed to make lunches of Doritos Chili Cheese nachos from the snack bar accompanied with some awesome Grandma's Cookies."
Though he helped with farm work, Brandon's poor eating habits combined with a relatively sedentary lifestyle of homework and video games -- his weight prevented him from taking part in school sports.
"Throughout elementary school I tried playing summer league baseball and basketball," said Hollas. "But [I] was never good because of my weight, which depressed me even more."
Instead, Hollas joined Texas 4-H and other student organizations. Though the activities kept him busy, he said they didn't help him burn the calories he was consuming daily.
By the time he was a freshman in college, he weighed 380 pounds.
"I can remember lying in my dorm room at Texas A&M ... with my large stomach weighing me down in bed," Hollas remembered. "I told myself, 'I have to change and I have to do it now or it won't ever happen.' " Fit Nation: Watch more on Brandon Hollas' weight loss »
Around the same time, he had another wake-up call. His 11-year-old cousin was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and his grandmother was diagnosed with Type 2, or adult onset diabetes. Their diagnoses combined with a family history of obesity to convince Hollas he had to make a change.
That very same day in 2001, he took the first step toward weight loss by eliminating soft drinks from his diet.
Hollas also joined the recreation center on campus and started riding an exercise bicycle. He lost 50 pounds within six months. The weight loss motivated him to begin learning about health and fitness at the school's library and in men's health magazines.
"I wasn't educated about how to eat right or how to lose weight," Hollas recalled. "I read all about nutrition, how to change meals to make them [healthier]."
He also started eating more lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, fiber and good carbohydrates.
The new diet and fitness regimen transformed his body and gave him the courage to start dating.
Four years later, Hollas had lost 180 pounds -- nearly half of his former weight. His weight now fluctuates around 210 pounds.
Today, weight training has helped him increase his muscle mass and he maintains his weight through a balanced diet and exercise five days a week. However, Hollas said he allows himself an occasional splurge and even meets friends out once a week for "Taco Tuesday."
"You can go out to eat with friends but just make smarter [healthier] choices," said Hollas.
Happier and healthier than ever, Hollas will graduate this month with a master's degree in agriculture economics from Purdue and hopes to land a job in the food industry and marketing.
He's also focused on staying lean and building muscle for perhaps the biggest day of his life -- when he and his college sweetheart tie the knot May 31.
"I have learned that there are no fast, easy ways out of being heavy," said Hollas. "But [with] a lot of simple changes and commitments, it is a rather easy thing to do."
"I know that I don't ever see myself ... getting to that weight again."
CNN Medical News producer Matt Sloane contributed to this report.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/05/02/weightloss.brandon.hollas/index.html?iref=werecommend
Saturday, May 3, 2008
EMF Risks Well Known
Yes, there is an ugly truth about cell phones, WIFI, WIMAX, et al.
We have been looking at this issue for at least a decade, and as the days pass we find more and more convincing material that strengthens our decision to educate people about these risks.
Forewarned is forearmed.
The Ugly Truth
Dr. Neil Cherry - (1946 -2003)
People around the world who have known Dr Neil Cherry personally or have been familiar with his work will be deeply saddened to learn that he died on 24 May 2003.
For eighteen months he had been coping with increasing mobility problems caused by Motor Neurone disease, but his mind remained as clear as ever and even in the last week of his life he was still focussed on the science that had been such an absorbing passion in his life. Though he could no longer use his computer he could still speak and until the day before he died he was supervising the editing of chapters of his latest book.
Knowing how long and persistently he had worked towards the development of windpower his wife Gae arranged for some strong-armed friends to drag his wheelchair up the steep slope at Gebbies Pass to let him see the erection of the first windmill by Windflow, the company of which he was Chairman of the Board. The brass plate on the mill reads Neil.
He continued to serve science and the health and welfare of people around the world when many others would have given up the struggle, and through all his illness, as through all his career, he had wonderful support from his wife Gae.
The papers written by Dr Cherry will continue to be available on this website.
Dr Neil Cherry, held the position of Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Lincoln University, and had a professional scientific background in physics, biophysics, meteorology, Agricultural and Human Biometeorology, renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental epidemiology.
Environmental Health involves assessing the health impacts of environmental toxins and proposing solutions based on efficient, smart and safer technology, engineering, planning and strategies that are consistent with the quadruple bottom line. The quadruple bottom line takes into account environmental, social, financial and cultural factors.
Professor Cherry had skills of teaching and research on the climate, health effects of weather on plants, animals and people and the health effects of air pollution and viruses, the academic area of Biology, Biophysics and Environmental Epidemiology. Dr Cherry was also an elected Regional Councillor on Environmental Canterbury, since 1992. From 1995 he had been the Chair of the Regional Planning Committee. Thus he was responsible for developing plans to clean up the environment. He was frequently involved in resource consent hearings for applications seeking to release contaminants to the environment.
Dr Cherry had been very familiar with environmental law and its linkage to scientific evidence. The main New Zealand law applied to the plans and resource consents is the Resource Management Act (1991) [RMA]. The RMA law requires decisions to avoid, remedy or mitigate any potential or actual adverse affects of activities on the environment. In the RMA the Environment includes people and communities. Effects include cumulative effects and Any potential effects of low probability that have a high potential impact , Section 3, RMA.
Back in 1994 Dr Cherry was invited by a local primary school (Opawa) to present information on the possible health effects of a cell site that was proposed to be installed next to the infant department of the school. He explained to the school meeting that the law contains the precautionary approach of having to deal with potential adverse effects on the environment including people and children. Integrating his knowledge from classical physics involving resonant absorption, showed that the frequency of the cellphone radiation produced a half wavelength that match the child's size. Therefore children were highly vulnerable for any possible health effects. He therefore recommended that the school declined the offer. The school voted by over 80 percent to reject the offer to install a cell site adjacent to the infant teaching block.
Since this time most of Professor Cherry's research had been focused on the health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation. In November 1994 he was an expert witness in the first cell site base station appeal in New Zealand assisting the local residents to win the case by the court rejecting the request by BellSouth for a 200µW/cm² public exposure standard. The court set the allowable level at 2µW/cm², based on evidence of childhood leukaemia at 2.4µW/cm², the law requiring it to be avoided. Dr Cherry had been surprised to find how much published science there is to show that across the electromagnetic spectrum the ELF fields and RF/MW radiation damage the cellular DNA, alter cellular calcium ions, reduce melatonin, and altar many cellular functions. Radiofrequency and Microwaves, including cell phone radiation, are genotoxic shown by many independent studies published since the first in 1959. Therefore they are carcinogenic. Microwaves also open the Blood Brain Barrier, letting natural and external brain damaging chemicals into the brain and CNS. Dr Cherry also discovered that epidemiological studies of exposed workers and the residents confirm, through classical public health assessment, that electromagnetic fields and radiation are a Ubiquitous Universal Genotoxic Carcinogen, causing increased rates of Cancer, Cardiac, Reproductive and Neurological health effects in exposed human populations, with a safe level of zero exposure.
Dr Cherry's standing and credibility was confirmed on 1 January 2002 by the award of a Royal Honour of Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit (O.N.Z.M.). The citation for his award shows that it is for his services to Science, Education and Community, including his research and teaching work on Environmental Epidemiology and the health effects of electromagnetic radiation.
Dr Cherry's own research, published in the Natural Hazards journal, Cherry (2002), shows that a natural electromagnetic signal, called the Schumann Resonances, generated by a tropical thunderstorms, and radiating around the world in the resonant cavity created between earth s surface and the bottom layer of the ionosphere, is resonantly absorbed, detected and responded to by the brain because of the ELF frequency matching the frequency range of the spectrum of the brain EEG rhythms.
The Schumann Resonance signals provide synchronization of the ELF, daily and annual functions of the brain. The latter two are in support of the normal diurnal and seasonal solar activity. This provides the biophysically plausible mechanism to explain how sunspots on the sun, solar storms and sunspot cycles modulate cancer, cardiac, reproductive and neurological effects through modulating the melatonin/serotonin cycle in human populations. This confirms the importance of and sensitivity of the melatonin protective activity, including being a highly potent antioxidant being with naturally produced (by breathing) oxygen free radicals.
Cherry (2002) predicted that since electrical workers and physiotherapists are occupationally exposed to electromagnetic fields that are about a million times higher than the Schumann Resonance signal, would have higher rates of cancer, cardiac reproductive and neurological effects. Multiple independent epidemiological studies confirm that this is true. It is also scientifically sensible and proven that placing a cellular telephone next to your head, producing a signal around a billion times stronger than the Schumann Resonance signal, causes serious alterations of brain activity, leading to elevated rates of a road accidents, headaches, nausea, dizziness, loss of concentration and memory, DNA damage and enhanced cell death rates, and significant increases in brain cancer rates. All of this is confirmed by many published studies. Biological organs, including the brain, are flexible, variable and adoptive biological organs. For the brain s electromagnetic thinking activity to be coherent and stable enough for intelligence to develop, Dr Cherry had concluded that the ELF synchronization of the brain electromagnetic activity by the Schumann Resonance Signal in a has provided a mechanism that allowed intelligence to develop.
We have been looking at this issue for at least a decade, and as the days pass we find more and more convincing material that strengthens our decision to educate people about these risks.
Forewarned is forearmed.
The Ugly Truth
Dr. Neil Cherry - (1946 -2003)
People around the world who have known Dr Neil Cherry personally or have been familiar with his work will be deeply saddened to learn that he died on 24 May 2003.
For eighteen months he had been coping with increasing mobility problems caused by Motor Neurone disease, but his mind remained as clear as ever and even in the last week of his life he was still focussed on the science that had been such an absorbing passion in his life. Though he could no longer use his computer he could still speak and until the day before he died he was supervising the editing of chapters of his latest book.
Knowing how long and persistently he had worked towards the development of windpower his wife Gae arranged for some strong-armed friends to drag his wheelchair up the steep slope at Gebbies Pass to let him see the erection of the first windmill by Windflow, the company of which he was Chairman of the Board. The brass plate on the mill reads Neil.
He continued to serve science and the health and welfare of people around the world when many others would have given up the struggle, and through all his illness, as through all his career, he had wonderful support from his wife Gae.
The papers written by Dr Cherry will continue to be available on this website.
Dr Neil Cherry, held the position of Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Lincoln University, and had a professional scientific background in physics, biophysics, meteorology, Agricultural and Human Biometeorology, renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental epidemiology.
Environmental Health involves assessing the health impacts of environmental toxins and proposing solutions based on efficient, smart and safer technology, engineering, planning and strategies that are consistent with the quadruple bottom line. The quadruple bottom line takes into account environmental, social, financial and cultural factors.
Professor Cherry had skills of teaching and research on the climate, health effects of weather on plants, animals and people and the health effects of air pollution and viruses, the academic area of Biology, Biophysics and Environmental Epidemiology. Dr Cherry was also an elected Regional Councillor on Environmental Canterbury, since 1992. From 1995 he had been the Chair of the Regional Planning Committee. Thus he was responsible for developing plans to clean up the environment. He was frequently involved in resource consent hearings for applications seeking to release contaminants to the environment.
Dr Cherry had been very familiar with environmental law and its linkage to scientific evidence. The main New Zealand law applied to the plans and resource consents is the Resource Management Act (1991) [RMA]. The RMA law requires decisions to avoid, remedy or mitigate any potential or actual adverse affects of activities on the environment. In the RMA the Environment includes people and communities. Effects include cumulative effects and Any potential effects of low probability that have a high potential impact , Section 3, RMA.
Back in 1994 Dr Cherry was invited by a local primary school (Opawa) to present information on the possible health effects of a cell site that was proposed to be installed next to the infant department of the school. He explained to the school meeting that the law contains the precautionary approach of having to deal with potential adverse effects on the environment including people and children. Integrating his knowledge from classical physics involving resonant absorption, showed that the frequency of the cellphone radiation produced a half wavelength that match the child's size. Therefore children were highly vulnerable for any possible health effects. He therefore recommended that the school declined the offer. The school voted by over 80 percent to reject the offer to install a cell site adjacent to the infant teaching block.
Since this time most of Professor Cherry's research had been focused on the health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation. In November 1994 he was an expert witness in the first cell site base station appeal in New Zealand assisting the local residents to win the case by the court rejecting the request by BellSouth for a 200µW/cm² public exposure standard. The court set the allowable level at 2µW/cm², based on evidence of childhood leukaemia at 2.4µW/cm², the law requiring it to be avoided. Dr Cherry had been surprised to find how much published science there is to show that across the electromagnetic spectrum the ELF fields and RF/MW radiation damage the cellular DNA, alter cellular calcium ions, reduce melatonin, and altar many cellular functions. Radiofrequency and Microwaves, including cell phone radiation, are genotoxic shown by many independent studies published since the first in 1959. Therefore they are carcinogenic. Microwaves also open the Blood Brain Barrier, letting natural and external brain damaging chemicals into the brain and CNS. Dr Cherry also discovered that epidemiological studies of exposed workers and the residents confirm, through classical public health assessment, that electromagnetic fields and radiation are a Ubiquitous Universal Genotoxic Carcinogen, causing increased rates of Cancer, Cardiac, Reproductive and Neurological health effects in exposed human populations, with a safe level of zero exposure.
Dr Cherry's standing and credibility was confirmed on 1 January 2002 by the award of a Royal Honour of Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit (O.N.Z.M.). The citation for his award shows that it is for his services to Science, Education and Community, including his research and teaching work on Environmental Epidemiology and the health effects of electromagnetic radiation.
Dr Cherry's own research, published in the Natural Hazards journal, Cherry (2002), shows that a natural electromagnetic signal, called the Schumann Resonances, generated by a tropical thunderstorms, and radiating around the world in the resonant cavity created between earth s surface and the bottom layer of the ionosphere, is resonantly absorbed, detected and responded to by the brain because of the ELF frequency matching the frequency range of the spectrum of the brain EEG rhythms.
The Schumann Resonance signals provide synchronization of the ELF, daily and annual functions of the brain. The latter two are in support of the normal diurnal and seasonal solar activity. This provides the biophysically plausible mechanism to explain how sunspots on the sun, solar storms and sunspot cycles modulate cancer, cardiac, reproductive and neurological effects through modulating the melatonin/serotonin cycle in human populations. This confirms the importance of and sensitivity of the melatonin protective activity, including being a highly potent antioxidant being with naturally produced (by breathing) oxygen free radicals.
Cherry (2002) predicted that since electrical workers and physiotherapists are occupationally exposed to electromagnetic fields that are about a million times higher than the Schumann Resonance signal, would have higher rates of cancer, cardiac reproductive and neurological effects. Multiple independent epidemiological studies confirm that this is true. It is also scientifically sensible and proven that placing a cellular telephone next to your head, producing a signal around a billion times stronger than the Schumann Resonance signal, causes serious alterations of brain activity, leading to elevated rates of a road accidents, headaches, nausea, dizziness, loss of concentration and memory, DNA damage and enhanced cell death rates, and significant increases in brain cancer rates. All of this is confirmed by many published studies. Biological organs, including the brain, are flexible, variable and adoptive biological organs. For the brain s electromagnetic thinking activity to be coherent and stable enough for intelligence to develop, Dr Cherry had concluded that the ELF synchronization of the brain electromagnetic activity by the Schumann Resonance Signal in a has provided a mechanism that allowed intelligence to develop.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
No Sludge in My Soap
I have used Dr. Bronner's almost forever! And I would not be without Super Baby Mild and Peppermint, as well as SAL-SUDS, ever-ever-ever.
Being an aging 'hippie' from the 60s in San Francisco and Morningstar Ranch I can only praise the product.
And I certainly praise David Bronner for his actions.
I started teaching classes about the problem with so called 'health store type' shampoos, lotions and other HABA products in the late 1980s. Some of the brand names listed in this article are some of the same brands I questioned years ago.
Cosmetics is at least a 10 billion dollar industry. While you are dousing your body with harmful chemical ingredients, not required to be tested in combination for FDA approval, think about your future health.
Read labels and get your a copy of Judi Vance's excellent book as a reference, "Beauty to Die For".
Being an aging 'hippie' from the 60s in San Francisco and Morningstar Ranch I can only praise the product.
And I certainly praise David Bronner for his actions.
I started teaching classes about the problem with so called 'health store type' shampoos, lotions and other HABA products in the late 1980s. Some of the brand names listed in this article are some of the same brands I questioned years ago.
Cosmetics is at least a 10 billion dollar industry. While you are dousing your body with harmful chemical ingredients, not required to be tested in combination for FDA approval, think about your future health.
Read labels and get your a copy of Judi Vance's excellent book as a reference, "Beauty to Die For".
Dr. Bronner's Stands Against Major 'Organic' Cheater Brands
Offending Companies Claim "Organic" or "Organics" on Labels But Main Cleansing Ingredients Are Based on Conventional Agricultural and/or Petrochemical Material
SAN FRANCISCO, April 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The family owned Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court today against numerous personal care brands to force them to stop making misleading organic labeling claims. Dr. Bronner's and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) had warned offending brands that they faced litigation unless they committed to either drop their organic claims or reformulate away from main ingredients made from conventional
agricultural and/or petrochemical material without any certified organic material. OCA has played the leading role in exposing and educating consumers about deceptive organic branding.
David Bronner, President of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps says, "We have been deeply disappointed and frustrated by companies in the 'natural'personal care space who have been screwing over organic consumers, engaging in misleading organic branding and label call-outs, on products that were not natural in the first place, let alone organic." Dr. Bronner's has determined, based on extensive surveys, that organic consumers expect that cleansing ingredients in branded and labeled soaps, shampoos and body washes that are labeled Organic", "Organics" or "Made with Organic" will be
from organic as distinct from conventional agricultural material, produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides, and free of petrochemical compounds.
For example: The major cleansing ingredient in Jason "Pure, Natural & Organic" liquid soaps, body washes and shampoos is Sodium Myreth Sulfate, which involves ethoxylating a conventional non-organic fatty chain with the carcinogenic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide, which produces caricinogenic 1,4-Dioxane as a contaminant. The major cleansing ingredient in Avalon "Organics" soaps, bodywashes and shampoos, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, contains conventional non-organic agricultural material combined with the
petrochemical Amdiopropyl Betaine. Nature's Gate "Organics" main cleansers are Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate (ethoxylated) and Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Kiss My Face "Obsessively Organic" cleansers are Olefin Sulfonate (a pure petrochemical) and Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Juice "Organics", Giovanni "Organic Cosmetics", Head "Organics", Desert Essence "Organics", and Ikove "Organic" all use Cocamdiopropyl Betaine as a main cleansing ingredient and no cleansers made from certified organic material. Due to the petrochemical compounds used to make the ingredient, Cocamidopropyl Betaine is contaminated with traces of Sodium monochloroacetate
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroacetic_acid), Amidoamine (AA)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amidoamine&action=edit&redlink=1
) , and dimethylaminopropylamine(DMAPA)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dimethylaminopropylamine&action=
edit&redlink=1) . Amidoamine in particular is suspected of causing skin sensitization and allergic reactions even at very low levels for certain individuals. Organic consumers have a right to expect that the personal care products they purchase with organic branding or label claims, contain cleansing ingredients made from organic agricultural material, not conventional or petrochemical material, and thus have absolutely no petrochemical contaminants that could pose any concern.
Dr. Bronner's products, in contrast to the brands noted above, contain cleansing and moisturizing ingredients made only from certified organic oils, made without any use of petrochemicals, and contain no petrochemical preservatives. The misleading organic noise created by culprit companies' branding and labeling practices, interferes with organic consumers ability to distinguish personal care whose main ingredients are in fact made with certified organic, not conventional or petrochemical, material, free of synthetic preservatives.
Lawsuit Also Names Estee Lauder, Stella McCartney's CARE, Ecocert and OASIS
Ecocert is a French-based certifier with a standard that allows not only cleansing ingredients made from conventional versus organic agriculture, but also allows inclusion, in the cleansing ingredients contained in products labeled as ":Made with Organic" ingredients, of certain petrochemicals such as Amidopropyl Betaine in Cocamidopropyl Betaine. Even worse, despite Ecocert's own regulations prohibiting the
labeling as "Organic" of a product containing less than 100% organic content, Ecocert in practice engages in "creative misinterpretation" of its own rules in order to accommodate clients engaging in organic mislabeling.
For instance, Ecocert certifies the Ikove brand's cleansing products to contain less than 50% organic content, noted in small text on the back of the product, where all cleansing ingredients are non-organic including Cocamidopropyl Betaine which contains petroleum compounds. Yet the product is labeled "Organic" Amazonian Avocado Bath & Shower Gel. Another instance is Stella McCartney's "100% Organic" CARE line certified by Ecocert that labels products as "100% Organic" that are not 100% Organic alongside ones that are; the labels of products that are not 100% organic simply insert the word "Active" before "Ingredients." In allowing such labeling, Ecocert simply ignores the requirements of its own certification standards.
Furthermore, the primary organic content in most Ecocert certified products comes from "Flower Waters" in which up to 80% of the "organic" content consists merely of just regular tap water that Ecocert counts as "organic."
Explicitly relying on the weak Ecocert standard as precedent, the new Organic and Sustainable Industry Standard ("OASIS")-a standard indeed developed exclusively by certain members of the industry, primarily Estee Lauder, with no consumer input--will permit certification of products outright as "Organic" (rather than as "Made with Organic" ingredients) even if such products contain hydrogenated and sulfated cleansing ingredients such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate made from conventional agricultural material grown with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, and preserved with synthetic petrochemical preservatives such as Ethylhexylglycerin and Phenoxyethanol. [Reference: OASIS Standard section 6.2 and Anti-Microbial List] The organic content is required to only be 85%, which in water and detergent-based personal care products, means organic water extracts and aloe vera will greenwash conventional synthetic cleansing ingredients and preservatives.
The OASIS standard is not merely useless but deliberately misleading to organic consumers looking for a reliable indicator of true "organic" product integrity in personal care. Organic consumers expect that cleansing ingredients in products labeled "Organic" be made from organic not conventional agriculture, to not be hydrogenated or sulfated, and to be free from synthetic petrochemical preservatives. Surprisingly, companies represented on the OASIS board, such as Hain (Jason "Pure, Natural & Organic"; Avalon "Organics") and Cosway (Head "Organics",) produce liquid
soap, bodywash and shampoo products with petrochemicals in their cleansers even though use of petrochemicals in this way is not permitted even under the very permissible OASIS standard these companies have themselves developed and endorsed.
Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the OCA, said: "The pressure of imminent litigation outlined in cease and desist letters sent by OCA and Dr. Bronner's in March prompted some serious discussion with some of the offending companies, but ultimately failed to resolve the core issues."
SOURCE Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
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