Ag-gag Law Struck Down in Idaho

Armed with this precedent, it’s time to roll these anti-consumer laws back in other states. State-based Action Alert!

Recently, a judge in the federal District Court for Idaho ruled that the state’s so-called “ag-gag” law was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

Idaho’s bill was signed into law last year and, like similar ag-gag laws in seven other states, makes it a felony to document and expose illegal and cruel practices at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and other agricultural facilities without permission.

In his decision, Judge B. Lynn Winmill wrote:

The effect of the statute will be to suppress speech by undercover investigators and whistleblowers concerning topics of great public importance: the safety of the public food supply, the safety of agricultural workers, the treatment and health of farm animals, and the impact of business activities on the environment.

This decision sets a strong precedent for similar legal challenges to ag-gag laws in other states.

Idaho’s law came about as a result of a 2012 exposé of Bettencourt Dairies, the largest dairy factory farm in Idaho. The video showed cows being beaten by workers, dragged by the neck in chains, and confined in pens covered in feces, which caused the animals to slip and injure themselves.

Unsurprisingly, the video rankled Big Farma companies, powerful players in Idaho. Shortly after it was released, lobbyists with Big Farma began working with lawmakers on legislation to prevent similar investigations into their practices. In a true testament to the power of the agribusiness lobby in the state, Idaho’s bill was introduced on February 10, 2014—and signed into law on February 28.

Rather than applauding members of the public for performing duties that state and federal regulators were either unable or unwilling to perform themselves, state politicians rushed to the defense of industrial farmers. In his decision, Judge Winmill mentions state politicians who condemned the activists who made the exposé as “terrorists” and compared them to “marauding invaders centuries ago who swarmed into foreign territory and destroyed crops to starve foes into submission.”

Let’s keep in mind what these lawmakers and their counterparts in other states are using such sensational language to defend. CAFOs are responsible for foodborne illnesses like salmonella and listeria; are notorious for their overuse and misuse of antibiotics, exacerbating the “superbug” problem that is rendering many antibiotics all but useless; and ruin rural economies in a variety of ways. In addition, there is the incredibly inhumane treatment of the animals themselves.

Action Alert! If you live in one of the three states where ag-gag laws are currently being considered, click on your state below to send a message to your legislators urging them not to support this legislation. Please send your message immediately.

• Colorado
• New Mexico

If you live in one of the seven states listed below that currently has an ag-gag law on the books, click the “Take Action” button to ask your representatives to repeal the law in order to avoid a costly lawsuit like the one in Idaho.

• Iowa
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Missouri
• Montana
• Utah
• Wyoming

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Fracking Chemicals for Dinner?

Will produce from California be contaminated with toxic chemicals from fracking fluid? Action Alert!

In the face of a four-year-long drought, some farmers in California are turning to unconventional sources for the water they need to irrigate their crops: oil-drilling companies. The Los Angeles Times reports that Chevron, one of the largest oil companies in the world, recycles 21 million gallons of treated fracking fluid—water containing a cocktail of chemicals–and sells it to farmers to use on their crops. This program has been around for about two decades, and is heralded by some California lawmakers as a “water conservation” model to be replicated in other states facing water shortages.

Let’s hope not.

As you probably know, hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a method of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand, and hundreds of different chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.

We’ve covered the topic in the past, particularly how fracking can contaminate drinking water and damage the environment. You may remember the Gasland documentary in which a resident near a fracking site was able to light his tap water on fire. It’s no wonder that this happens: in each frack, 80 to 300 tons of chemicals are pumped into the ground and then back out.

The obvious problem with recycling fracking fluid for irrigation is the potential for the chemicals to contaminate crops. Even after the fracking fluid has been treated following state guidelines, it has been found to contain oil, acetone (used as a laboratory solvent and a paint thinner), and methylene chloride (another powerful solvent that is classified as a potential carcinogen).

These are just the chemicals that have been found. The larger problem is that we simply don’t know what chemicals are used in fracking liquid, as companies often avoid disclosing the chemicals they use by claiming their particular recipe is a proprietary “trade secret.” So if we don’t know which chemicals to test for, any number of the hundreds of chemicals used in fracking could be present in this water—especially since many chemicals can’t be removed unless reverse osmosis filtration is used.

On the upside, California recently passed a law that requires oil companies to disclose the chemicals they use—but only to state regulators, not to consumers. This is unfortunately the norm in states across the country. Pennsylvania, for instance, allows only doctors to see the full list of ingredients used by oil and gas companies so they can treat patients made sick by the chemicals—and only after signing a non-disclosure form preventing them from sharing the information with their patients. That’s right—if you are poisoned, you won’t be able to find out what has poisoned you! Is this really happening in America?

Even buying organic may not fully protect you. A product could, so far as we know, carry the USDA’s “organic” label and still be grown using recycled fracking fluid. The National Organic Program’s regulations do not seem to include any directly stated requirements regarding the water being used on the crops.

Why would anyone dream up such a terrible idea as reusing fracking water on crops, and why? The answer, as usual, is money. The LA Times writes,

The program is a good deal for oil companies, which view the [fracking] water as an expensive nuisance. And it’s a bargain for the water districts. [The] cooperative pays Chevron about $30 an acre-foot for the wastewater, about half of open-market rates.

You read that right. Farmers don’t even get this “expensive nuisance” wastewater for free—they have to buy it, at half the price of non-contaminated water!

California Assemblyman Mike Gatto has introduced legislation that would require a label for foods grown with recycled fracking fluid. The proposed label would read, “Produced using recycled or treated oil-field wastewater.”

We won’t hold our breath waiting for this bill to pass. But even if it does pass, such a labeling law would only affect products sold in-state. But California grows an astounding percentage of America’s total produce: 99% of artichokes, 99% of walnuts, 97% of kiwis, 97% of plums, 95% of celery, 95% of garlic, 90% of broccoli, 89% of cauliflower, 71% of spinach, and 69% of carrots. Put another way, California produces nearly half of all US-grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

This raises the question: how will those of us outside of California know if the produce we’re buying—even if it’s labeled “organic”—was grown with water laced with or at least somewhat contaminated with industrial-strength solvents? As with GMOs, consumers have a right to basic information about their food and the right to make informed decisions about what to put into their bodies—but currently we have no way of knowing if our produce from California was grown with this toxic water.

Action Alert! Write to your state representatives and urge them to ban the use of fracking water on crops. Please send your message immediately.

Additional Action Alert for California Residents! Write to your state legislators and urge them to support Assemblyman Gatto’s legislation. Please send your message immediately.

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Action Alert: Ban Fracking Water on Crops

Related article: Fracking Chemicals for Dinner?

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Ag-gag Law Struck Down in Idaho

Armed with this precedent, it’s time to roll these anti-consumer laws back in other states. State-based Action Alert!

Recently, a judge in the federal District Court for Idaho ruled that the state’s so-called “ag-gag” law was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

Idaho’s bill was signed into law last year and, like similar ag-gag laws in seven other states, makes it a felony to document and expose illegal and cruel practices at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and other agricultural facilities without permission.

In his decision, Judge B. Lynn Winmill wrote:

The effect of the statute will be to suppress speech by undercover investigators and whistleblowers concerning topics of great public importance: the safety of the public food supply, the safety of agricultural workers, the treatment and health of farm animals, and the impact of business activities on the environment.

This decision sets a strong precedent for similar legal challenges to ag-gag laws in other states.

Idaho’s law came about as a result of a 2012 exposé of Bettencourt Dairies, the largest dairy factory farm in Idaho. The video showed cows being beaten by workers, dragged by the neck in chains, and confined in pens covered in feces, which caused the animals to slip and injure themselves.

Unsurprisingly, the video rankled Big Farma companies, powerful players in Idaho. Shortly after it was released, lobbyists with Big Farma began working with lawmakers on legislation to prevent similar investigations into their practices. In a true testament to the power of the agribusiness lobby in the state, Idaho’s bill was introduced on February 10, 2014—and signed into law on February 28.

Rather than applauding members of the public for performing duties that state and federal regulators were either unable or unwilling to perform themselves, state politicians rushed to the defense of industrial farmers. In his decision, Judge Winmill mentions state politicians who condemned the activists who made the exposé as “terrorists” and compared them to “marauding invaders centuries ago who swarmed into foreign territory and destroyed crops to starve foes into submission.”

Let’s keep in mind what these lawmakers and their counterparts in other states are using such sensational language to defend. CAFOs are responsible for foodborne illnesses like salmonella and listeria; are notorious for their overuse and misuse of antibiotics, exacerbating the “superbug” problem that is rendering many antibiotics all but useless; and ruin rural economies in a variety of ways. In addition, there is the incredibly inhumane treatment of the animals themselves.

Action Alert! If you live in one of the three states where ag-gag laws are currently being considered, click on your state below to send a message to your legislators urging them not to support this legislation. Please send your message immediately.

• Colorado
• New Mexico

If you live in one of the seven states listed below that currently has an ag-gag law on the books, click the “Take Action” button to ask your representatives to repeal the law in order to avoid a costly lawsuit like the one in Idaho.

• Iowa
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Missouri
• Montana
• Utah
• Wyoming

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Fracking Chemicals for Dinner?

Will produce from California be contaminated with toxic chemicals from fracking fluid? Action Alert!

In the face of a four-year-long drought, some farmers in California are turning to unconventional sources for the water they need to irrigate their crops: oil-drilling companies. The Los Angeles Times reports that Chevron, one of the largest oil companies in the world, recycles 21 million gallons of treated fracking fluid—water containing a cocktail of chemicals–and sells it to farmers to use on their crops. This program has been around for about two decades, and is heralded by some California lawmakers as a “water conservation” model to be replicated in other states facing water shortages.

Let’s hope not.

As you probably know, hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a method of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand, and hundreds of different chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.

We’ve covered the topic in the past, particularly how fracking can contaminate drinking water and damage the environment. You may remember the Gasland documentary in which a resident near a fracking site was able to light his tap water on fire. It’s no wonder that this happens: in each frack, 80 to 300 tons of chemicals are pumped into the ground and then back out.

The obvious problem with recycling fracking fluid for irrigation is the potential for the chemicals to contaminate crops. Even after the fracking fluid has been treated following state guidelines, it has been found to contain oil, acetone (used as a laboratory solvent and a paint thinner), and methylene chloride (another powerful solvent that is classified as a potential carcinogen).

These are just the chemicals that have been found. The larger problem is that we simply don’t know what chemicals are used in fracking liquid, as companies often avoid disclosing the chemicals they use by claiming their particular recipe is a proprietary “trade secret.” So if we don’t know which chemicals to test for, any number of the hundreds of chemicals used in fracking could be present in this water—especially since many chemicals can’t be removed unless reverse osmosis filtration is used.

On the upside, California recently passed a law that requires oil companies to disclose the chemicals they use—but only to state regulators, not to consumers. This is unfortunately the norm in states across the country. Pennsylvania, for instance, allows only doctors to see the full list of ingredients used by oil and gas companies so they can treat patients made sick by the chemicals—and only after signing a non-disclosure form preventing them from sharing the information with their patients. That’s right—if you are poisoned, you won’t be able to find out what has poisoned you! Is this really happening in America?

Even buying organic may not fully protect you. A product could, so far as we know, carry the USDA’s “organic” label and still be grown using recycled fracking fluid. The National Organic Program’s regulations do not seem to include any directly stated requirements regarding the water being used on the crops.

Why would anyone dream up such a terrible idea as reusing fracking water on crops, and why? The answer, as usual, is money. The LA Times writes,

The program is a good deal for oil companies, which view the [fracking] water as an expensive nuisance. And it’s a bargain for the water districts. [The] cooperative pays Chevron about $30 an acre-foot for the wastewater, about half of open-market rates.

You read that right. Farmers don’t even get this “expensive nuisance” wastewater for free—they have to buy it, at half the price of non-contaminated water!

California Assemblyman Mike Gatto has introduced legislation that would require a label for foods grown with recycled fracking fluid. The proposed label would read, “Produced using recycled or treated oil-field wastewater.”

We won’t hold our breath waiting for this bill to pass. But even if it does pass, such a labeling law would only affect products sold in-state. But California grows an astounding percentage of America’s total produce: 99% of artichokes, 99% of walnuts, 97% of kiwis, 97% of plums, 95% of celery, 95% of garlic, 90% of broccoli, 89% of cauliflower, 71% of spinach, and 69% of carrots. Put another way, California produces nearly half of all US-grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

This raises the question: how will those of us outside of California know if the produce we’re buying—even if it’s labeled “organic”—was grown with water laced with or at least somewhat contaminated with industrial-strength solvents? As with GMOs, consumers have a right to basic information about their food and the right to make informed decisions about what to put into their bodies—but currently we have no way of knowing if our produce from California was grown with this toxic water.

Action Alert! Write to your state representatives and urge them to ban the use of fracking water on crops. Please send your message immediately.

Additional Action Alert for California Residents! Write to your state legislators and urge them to support Assemblyman Gatto’s legislation. Please send your message immediately.

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Action Alert: Ban Fracking Water on Crops

Related article: Fracking Chemicals for Dinner?

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Hillary Clinton Prescribed a Dangerous Blood-Thinner

Being rich and famous does not necessarily mean you get better healthcare.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released a letter from one of her doctors giving her a clean bill of health after a full medical exam and attesting to her physical ability to serve as president. The letter revealed that Mrs. Clinton is being treated with the drug Coumadin to help prevent blood clots, which she experienced in 1998, 2009, and 2012. Coumadin (also called warfarin) is an anticoagulant intended to prevent blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes.

We’ve written before about how dangerous this and other drugs like it can be. It is one of the leading causes of emergency room fatalities. In 2011, it was the subject of 1,106 serious adverse event reports, including seventy-two deaths—and that is just in hospitals!

Warfarin has a long list of nasty side effects, including bleeding gums, blood in the urine, blurred vision, chest pain, peeling skin, serious bone loss, and confusion. It can also cause necrosis—the death of skin tissue. One study found that long-term warfarin use after myocardial infarction (that is, after a heart attack) did not reduce mortality or reinfarction, but is associated with significantly more major bleeding.

Warfarin can also create a vitamin K deficiency and calcification of the arteries. In a study of patients undergoing surgery for aortic valve replacement, patients who took warfarin had twice the calcium build-up in their heart valves as patients not on warfarin, presumably because the loss of vitamin K was preventing the calcium from getting into the bones as it should. This is also why calcium should never be taken without important co-factors like vitamin K (in particular, vitamin K-2, which is especially important), magnesium, vitamin D, and omega–3 fatty acids.

Warfarin also requires constant monitoring. Patients taking it must regularly be screened by their physicians to ensure that their international normalized ration (INR)—a measure of how quickly blood coagulates—remains within a safe range. As Life Extension magazine reports, this can be difficult to obtain, as one’s INR can fluctuate due to even minor alterations in diet.

We might politely point out to Mrs. Clinton that there are natural blood thinning alternatives that do not come with the laundry list of side effects from Big Pharma medications. Dr. Robert J. Rowen, for instance, recommends omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, bioflavanoids (such as gingko), natural clotting modulators like garlic, and nattokinase, which is made from fermented soy. Other natural blood thinners include the enzymes serrapeptase and lumbrokinase. Blood thickness (viscosity) is a good thing to test on an ongoing basis. High viscosity is an important risk factor for heart disease, as Jonathan Wright, MD, and other integrative physicians have emphasized.

Mrs. Clinton is also reportedly taking Armour Thyroid to treat an underactive thyroid gland. We were glad to hear this. It means that at least one of her physicians knows something about natural medicine. Armour Thyroid is DTE—desiccated thyroid extract, the natural form of the hormones, as opposed the synthetic forms that conventional medicine often prescribes. We wrote about Armour in 2013, when there was a suspicious shortage of DTE. We suspected the FDA was up to its usual cronyism, clearing the way for Big Pharma’s synthetic drugs. But the letters our readers sent to Congress and the FDA seem to have averted that outcome.

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Most Prestigious Medical Journal in America Calls for GMO Labeling!

Help us make sure your legislators on Capitol Hill hear about this. Action Alert!

A recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) calls on lawmakers to label genetically modified foods.

The authors begin by pointing out the well-established fact that genetic modifications to make plants resistant to herbicides and pesticides have tremendously increased the amount of toxic chemicals dumped on crops. Between 1974 and 2014, glyphosate use alone has increased by a factor of more than 250.

This stands to become much worse. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided in 2014 to approve Enlist Duo, a new herbicide made by Dow Chemical that combines glyphosate and 2,4-D. This will lead to substantially more chemicals in our food: according to the EPA’s own projections, 2,4-D use will increase by as much as seven times as a result. (You can read our coverage of the new generation of combination herbicides here.)

The authors point out what many of us have realized for a long time: these are very nasty chemicals. 2,4-D is an ingredient in what used to be called Agent Orange when used in the Vietnam War. The World Health Organization’s ultra-cautious International Agency for Research on Cancer recently classified 2,4-D as a “possible human carcinogen” and glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen.” Both herbicides were linked to increases in malignant tumors at multiple sites in animals. Glyphosate was also linked to an increased incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans.

These new developments cause the authors to conclude, “The time has therefore come to thoroughly reconsider all aspects of the safety of plant biotechnology….We believe the time has come to revisit the United States’ reluctance to label GM foods.”

This is not only a bold statement coming from an article in the NEJM. It is also a brave one. NEJM, like other medical journals, is highly dependent on industry for financial support. This shows that the editors still have a measure of independence.

More and more evidence links pesticide use with health problems. Recently, The Guardian reported that Hawaii, where chemical companies spray 17 times more pesticide per acre than ordinary cornfields in the US, is experiencing a spike in birth defects—in some areas, at more than 10 times the national rate.

We reported previously that Rep. Mike Pompeo’s voluntary GMO labeling legislation known as the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act passed the House and could be taken up by the Senate after the August recess. Let’s hope that the words of caution from the NEJM—along with messages from the millions of consumers who want to know what’s in the food they eat—will prevent Big Food’s and Big Biotech’s lobbyists from buying our legislators.

Action Alert! Tell your senators about the NEJM’s recommendation that all GMO foods be labeled, and point out that the DARK Act’s voluntary labeling scheme means no GMO labeling by the biggest GMO producers! Please take action immediately.

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Hillary Clinton Prescribed a Dangerous Blood-Thinner

Being rich and famous does not necessarily mean you get better healthcare.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released a letter from one of her doctors giving her a clean bill of health after a full medical exam and attesting to her physical ability to serve as president. The letter revealed that Mrs. Clinton is being treated with the drug Coumadin to help prevent blood clots, which she experienced in 1998, 2009, and 2012. Coumadin (also called warfarin) is an anticoagulant intended to prevent blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes.

We’ve written before about how dangerous this and other drugs like it can be. It is one of the leading causes of emergency room fatalities. In 2011, it was the subject of 1,106 serious adverse event reports, including seventy-two deaths—and that is just in hospitals!

Warfarin has a long list of nasty side effects, including bleeding gums, blood in the urine, blurred vision, chest pain, peeling skin, serious bone loss, and confusion. It can also cause necrosis—the death of skin tissue. One study found that long-term warfarin use after myocardial infarction (that is, after a heart attack) did not reduce mortality or reinfarction, but is associated with significantly more major bleeding.

Warfarin can also create a vitamin K deficiency and calcification of the arteries. In a study of patients undergoing surgery for aortic valve replacement, patients who took warfarin had twice the calcium build-up in their heart valves as patients not on warfarin, presumably because the loss of vitamin K was preventing the calcium from getting into the bones as it should. This is also why calcium should never be taken without important co-factors like vitamin K (in particular, vitamin K-2, which is especially important), magnesium, vitamin D, and omega–3 fatty acids.

Warfarin also requires constant monitoring. Patients taking it must regularly be screened by their physicians to ensure that their international normalized ration (INR)—a measure of how quickly blood coagulates—remains within a safe range. As Life Extension magazine reports, this can be difficult to obtain, as one’s INR can fluctuate due to even minor alterations in diet.

We might politely point out to Mrs. Clinton that there are natural blood thinning alternatives that do not come with the laundry list of side effects from Big Pharma medications. Dr. Robert J. Rowen, for instance, recommends omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, bioflavanoids (such as gingko), natural clotting modulators like garlic, and nattokinase, which is made from fermented soy. Other natural blood thinners include the enzymes serrapeptase and lumbrokinase. Blood thickness (viscosity) is a good thing to test on an ongoing basis. High viscosity is an important risk factor for heart disease, as Jonathan Wright, MD, and other integrative physicians have emphasized.

Mrs. Clinton is also reportedly taking Armour Thyroid to treat an underactive thyroid gland. We were glad to hear this. It means that at least one of her physicians knows something about natural medicine. Armour Thyroid is DTE—desiccated thyroid extract, the natural form of the hormones, as opposed the synthetic forms that conventional medicine often prescribes. We wrote about Armour in 2013, when there was a suspicious shortage of DTE. We suspected the FDA was up to its usual cronyism, clearing the way for Big Pharma’s synthetic drugs. But the letters our readers sent to Congress and the FDA seem to have averted that outcome.

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Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Is it really linked to Alzheimer’s and autism? And why is eating it so different from getting it in a vaccine shot? Action Alert!

Aluminum is common in our environment, comprising about 8% of the Earth’s crust. It is therefore found in small amounts in our food, air, and water, but we don’t seem to absorb much from these sources, and we have a capacity to excrete small amounts.

The main source of dietary exposure to aluminum is in food additives—most commonly found in processed foods. Chronic use of antacids and buffered aspirins also increase our exposure to aluminum.

A few years go, we reported that the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under public pressure, was phasing out some (but not all) mercury-containing vaccines. At the same time, six more vaccines were added to the CDC schedule—and all of them contained aluminum as an adjuvant. (Adjuvants are substances added to vaccines to enhance the body’s immune response.)

Proponents of this say that the levels of aluminum present in vaccines are safe, presumably because the body can process and excrete the metal. One of the rationales used is that, “Aluminum is everywhere! It’s in breast milk, baby formula, and lots of other foods we eat every day.” Well, yes, arsenic is also naturally occurring in soil, but most people would agree that it is a bad idea to inject it directly into the body.

Importantly, ingesting aluminum in food is very different than having it directly injected. Only a small percentage of aluminum is absorbed into the body when it is eaten, but just about all of it is absorbed into the body when it is injected. This is because anything ingested is sent to the liver for detoxification before being absorbed into the bloodstream, whereas vaccines are injected directly into the blood with no chance for the liver to remove it first.

Additionally, different people process heavy metals, toxins, and even nutrients differently because of genetic variances called polymorphisms—meaning that some people are at greater risk due to their bio-individuality—which underscores the importance of not forcing everyone to take the same vaccines in the same way. This is only one reason why the recent approval of legislation in California to remove all non-medical exemptions to vaccination for kids going to public or private schools is scientifically indefensible, as well as morally contradictory when it comes from politicians who say they are committed to a woman’s control over her own body.

We need to keep in mind that aluminum has a long-documented history of neurotoxic effects:

• One study found aluminum to be associated with several neurodegenerative diseases, such as dialysis encephalopathy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Another study concluded that certain concentrations of aluminum in drinking water may be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
• Yet another study points out that “[abundant] research indicates that aluminum is a particularly reactive metal towards multiple aspects of human neurobiology and the altered genetics that are associated with the development and propagation of sporadic [Alzheimer’s disease].” The study also states that “at physiologically realistic concentrations, aluminum strongly promotes amyloid aggregation and accumulation, a key feature of [Alzheimer’s] neuropathology.”

What about aluminum in vaccines? Italian researchers found aluminum-containing DTP vaccines more likely than plain vaccines to cause redness or skin hardening in younger children. Some older kids had pain lasting up to fourteen days from the aluminum-containing vaccines. And this was just the beginning.

Another study found strong links between the increasing use of aluminum as an adjuvant and the heightened presence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the US and Europe. The researchers found that the countries with the highest presence of ASD exposed their children to more aluminum in vaccines. The authors noted that it is especially dangerous for newborns to receive these injections because the blood brain barrier is not fully formed and is “thus more permeable to toxic substances.” Exposure to even small amounts of aluminum has been shown to cause neurodevelopmental delays in preterm infants—yet infants who receive the recommended schedule of immunizations have received 5000 mcg (5mg) of aluminum by eighteen months of age.

The authors of the above-mentioned study hit on another key point regarding how little actual safety testing has been done regarding aluminum:

[It] remains surprising that in spite of over 80 years of use, the safety of [aluminum] adjuvants appears to rest largely on assumptions rather experimental evidence. For example, nothing is known about the toxicology and pharmacokinetics of [aluminum] compounds in infants and children. In addition, the mechanisms by which [aluminum] adjuvants interact with the immune system remain far from clear. In this regard it is notable that many vaccine trials usually use an [aluminum] adjuvant containing “placebo” or another vaccine as the “control” group, rather than a saline control. [This] has not allowed a direct comparison of the efficacy and safety of the antigen alone versus the [aluminum] adjuvant.

Keep in mind that the aluminum is not part of the vaccine itself. It is an additive which may make the immune system respond more fully to the vaccine, but we don’t really know much about it. And we nevertheless give it to our youngest children.

When we consider what evidence we have, it borders on insanity to force parents to expose infants and other young people to any of this substance if it can be avoided. But, of course, even to raise questions or suggest that we need to keep working to make vaccines safer is enough to earn the scorn of the mainstream media and the “anti-vaxxer” epithet.

By the way, you probably already know this, but the fluoride that the government commonly dumps into the water supply is a by-product of the aluminum manufacturing process. The aluminum industry in the past had to pay the cost of getting rid of this toxic by-product. But at the urging of industry, government began taking it off their hands and putting it into your water and toothpaste.

Before leaving aluminum, let’s also keep in mind that there are other adjuvants which are just as scary, including formaldehyde, antibiotics (why are they even in vaccines?), and polysorbate 80. Formaldehyde is listed by the EPA as a “probable carcinogen” and is linked to a host of other negative health effects. You may remember having to dissect animals kept in formaldehyde for high school biology class and how overpowering and nasty the smell is. Do we really want these dangerous substances injected directly into our children?

Action Alert! Write to the CDC and urge them at a minimum to address the questions that have been raised about the safety of aluminum in vaccines. Mercury is not the only concern. Other adjuvants such as aluminum, formaldehyde, antibiotics, and polysorbate 80 need a lot more study before being injected into our youngest children. Please send your message immediately.

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Most Prestigious Medical Journal in America Calls for GMO Labeling!

Help us make sure your legislators on Capitol Hill hear about this. Action Alert!

A recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) calls on lawmakers to label genetically modified foods.

The authors begin by pointing out the well-established fact that genetic modifications to make plants resistant to herbicides and pesticides have tremendously increased the amount of toxic chemicals dumped on crops. Between 1974 and 2014, glyphosate use alone has increased by a factor of more than 250.

This stands to become much worse. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided in 2014 to approve Enlist Duo, a new herbicide made by Dow Chemical that combines glyphosate and 2,4-D. This will lead to substantially more chemicals in our food: according to the EPA’s own projections, 2,4-D use will increase by as much as seven times as a result. (You can read our coverage of the new generation of combination herbicides here.)

The authors point out what many of us have realized for a long time: these are very nasty chemicals. 2,4-D is an ingredient in what used to be called Agent Orange when used in the Vietnam War. The World Health Organization’s ultra-cautious International Agency for Research on Cancer recently classified 2,4-D as a “possible human carcinogen” and glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen.” Both herbicides were linked to increases in malignant tumors at multiple sites in animals. Glyphosate was also linked to an increased incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans.

These new developments cause the authors to conclude, “The time has therefore come to thoroughly reconsider all aspects of the safety of plant biotechnology….We believe the time has come to revisit the United States’ reluctance to label GM foods.”

This is not only a bold statement coming from an article in the NEJM. It is also a brave one. NEJM, like other medical journals, is highly dependent on industry for financial support. This shows that the editors still have a measure of independence.

More and more evidence links pesticide use with health problems. Recently, The Guardian reported that Hawaii, where chemical companies spray 17 times more pesticide per acre than ordinary cornfields in the US, is experiencing a spike in birth defects—in some areas, at more than 10 times the national rate.

We reported previously that Rep. Mike Pompeo’s voluntary GMO labeling legislation known as the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act passed the House and could be taken up by the Senate after the August recess. Let’s hope that the words of caution from the NEJM—along with messages from the millions of consumers who want to know what’s in the food they eat—will prevent Big Food’s and Big Biotech’s lobbyists from buying our legislators.

Action Alert! Tell your senators about the NEJM’s recommendation that all GMO foods be labeled, and point out that the DARK Act’s voluntary labeling scheme means no GMO labeling by the biggest GMO producers! Please take action immediately.

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Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Is it really linked to Alzheimer’s and autism? And why is eating it so different from getting it in a vaccine shot? Action Alert!

Aluminum is common in our environment, comprising about 8% of the Earth’s crust. It is therefore found in small amounts in our food, air, and water, but we don’t seem to absorb much from these sources, and we have a capacity to excrete small amounts.

The main source of dietary exposure to aluminum is in food additives—most commonly found in processed foods. Chronic use of antacids and buffered aspirins also increase our exposure to aluminum.

A few years go, we reported that the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under public pressure, was phasing out some (but not all) mercury-containing vaccines. At the same time, six more vaccines were added to the CDC schedule—and all of them contained aluminum as an adjuvant. (Adjuvants are substances added to vaccines to enhance the body’s immune response.)

Proponents of this say that the levels of aluminum present in vaccines are safe, presumably because the body can process and excrete the metal. One of the rationales used is that, “Aluminum is everywhere! It’s in breast milk, baby formula, and lots of other foods we eat every day.” Well, yes, arsenic is also naturally occurring in soil, but most people would agree that it is a bad idea to inject it directly into the body.

Importantly, ingesting aluminum in food is very different than having it directly injected. Only a small percentage of aluminum is absorbed into the body when it is eaten, but just about all of it is absorbed into the body when it is injected. This is because anything ingested is sent to the liver for detoxification before being absorbed into the bloodstream, whereas vaccines are injected directly into the blood with no chance for the liver to remove it first.

Additionally, different people process heavy metals, toxins, and even nutrients differently because of genetic variances called polymorphisms—meaning that some people are at greater risk due to their bio-individuality—which underscores the importance of not forcing everyone to take the same vaccines in the same way. This is only one reason why the recent approval of legislation in California to remove all non-medical exemptions to vaccination for kids going to public or private schools is scientifically indefensible, as well as morally contradictory when it comes from politicians who say they are committed to a woman’s control over her own body.

We need to keep in mind that aluminum has a long-documented history of neurotoxic effects:

• One study found aluminum to be associated with several neurodegenerative diseases, such as dialysis encephalopathy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Another study concluded that certain concentrations of aluminum in drinking water may be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
• Yet another study points out that “[abundant] research indicates that aluminum is a particularly reactive metal towards multiple aspects of human neurobiology and the altered genetics that are associated with the development and propagation of sporadic [Alzheimer’s disease].” The study also states that “at physiologically realistic concentrations, aluminum strongly promotes amyloid aggregation and accumulation, a key feature of [Alzheimer’s] neuropathology.”

What about aluminum in vaccines? Italian researchers found aluminum-containing DTP vaccines more likely than plain vaccines to cause redness or skin hardening in younger children. Some older kids had pain lasting up to fourteen days from the aluminum-containing vaccines. And this was just the beginning.

Another study found strong links between the increasing use of aluminum as an adjuvant and the heightened presence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the US and Europe. The researchers found that the countries with the highest presence of ASD exposed their children to more aluminum in vaccines. The authors noted that it is especially dangerous for newborns to receive these injections because the blood brain barrier is not fully formed and is “thus more permeable to toxic substances.” Exposure to even small amounts of aluminum has been shown to cause neurodevelopmental delays in preterm infants—yet infants who receive the recommended schedule of immunizations have received 5000 mcg (5mg) of aluminum by eighteen months of age.

The authors of the above-mentioned study hit on another key point regarding how little actual safety testing has been done regarding aluminum:

[It] remains surprising that in spite of over 80 years of use, the safety of [aluminum] adjuvants appears to rest largely on assumptions rather experimental evidence. For example, nothing is known about the toxicology and pharmacokinetics of [aluminum] compounds in infants and children. In addition, the mechanisms by which [aluminum] adjuvants interact with the immune system remain far from clear. In this regard it is notable that many vaccine trials usually use an [aluminum] adjuvant containing “placebo” or another vaccine as the “control” group, rather than a saline control. [This] has not allowed a direct comparison of the efficacy and safety of the antigen alone versus the [aluminum] adjuvant.

Keep in mind that the aluminum is not part of the vaccine itself. It is an additive which may make the immune system respond more fully to the vaccine, but we don’t really know much about it. And we nevertheless give it to our youngest children.

When we consider what evidence we have, it borders on insanity to force parents to expose infants and other young people to any of this substance if it can be avoided. But, of course, even to raise questions or suggest that we need to keep working to make vaccines safer is enough to earn the scorn of the mainstream media and the “anti-vaxxer” epithet.

By the way, you probably already know this, but the fluoride that the government commonly dumps into the water supply is a by-product of the aluminum manufacturing process. The aluminum industry in the past had to pay the cost of getting rid of this toxic by-product. But at the urging of industry, government began taking it off their hands and putting it into your water and toothpaste.

Before leaving aluminum, let’s also keep in mind that there are other adjuvants which are just as scary, including formaldehyde, antibiotics (why are they even in vaccines?), and polysorbate 80. Formaldehyde is listed by the EPA as a “probable carcinogen” and is linked to a host of other negative health effects. You may remember having to dissect animals kept in formaldehyde for high school biology class and how overpowering and nasty the smell is. Do we really want these dangerous substances injected directly into our children?

Action Alert! Write to the CDC and urge them at a minimum to address the questions that have been raised about the safety of aluminum in vaccines. Mercury is not the only concern. Other adjuvants such as aluminum, formaldehyde, antibiotics, and polysorbate 80 need a lot more study before being injected into our youngest children. Please send your message immediately.

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Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Related article: Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Action Alert: Tell the Senate to Reject the DARK Act

Related article: Most Prestigious Medical Journal in America Calls for GMO Labeling!

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Related article: Are You at Risk From Aluminum Exposure?

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Action Alert: Tell the Senate to Reject the DARK Act

Related article: Most Prestigious Medical Journal in America Calls for GMO Labeling!

Trouble Taking Action? Click here.

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Why Are Some Supplement Companies Thinking about Giving Durbin What He Wants?

The senator’s bill has been repeatedly defeated. Why capitulate now?

A trade journal reports that some in the supplement industry are apparently considering supporting a Durbin-style proposal for a supplement pre-market notification system. It was reportedly discussed at a recent trade meeting.

What is the explanation? One that we have heard is that some supplement companies are seeking to placate industry critics such as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. We previously reported on his seriously flawed (and failed) investigation into some herbal supplement manufacturers. Another possible and even more sinister explanation is that some larger producers are trying to shut out smaller producers who have fewer resources.

Whether the motivation is fear or crony capitalist greed, the supplement industry had better be careful. Once the pre-notification genie is out of the bottle, supplement opponents like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) will likely keep pushing and pushing until supplements are treated identically to drugs, even though drug companies have patents to help pay the billions of dollars often necessary for FDA approval and can charge as much as $100,000 for a single drug treatment. Few supplement companies have billions to spend on one approval, let alone one for each of their supplements. And the market will never support the sort of supplement prices that prescription drugs command.

In the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which regulates supplements, Congress said that supplements should be regulated like food, not drugs. In other words, current law already protects both the general public and supplement companies from such unreasonable and unsupportable regulation efforts of the sort Sen. Durbin and his ilk have been pushing.

All of this is even more important in the light of what is happening on Capitol Hill. Last week, we reported that natural health activists successfully defeated Durbin’s most recent supplement attack, a sneak provision in the Defense bill. But we also warned that Durbin reportedly plans to reintroduce his Dietary Supplement Labeling Act as a standalone bill.

In all of its previous introductions, Durbin’s bill has had two sections. The first sets up a pre-market registration system that would require supplement manufacturers to submit a description of each supplement they produce, a list of all ingredients, and a copy of the label. The second section calls for the creation of a list, with the help of the Institute of Medicine, of supplement ingredients that could cause “potentially serious adverse events.” This section also calls for warning labels on products containing what the government determines to be dangerous ingredients.

You will note that current regulation already ensures that unsafe products either don’t make it to market or are removed from the shelves—provided the FDA does its job and enforces the rules properly. From a consumer safety standpoint, the second section does nothing that isn’t already accomplished under current law—except make it more difficult and costly to produce supplements.

On the other hand, the Durbin bill goes far beyond what current law provides, because it wouldn’t simply remove unsafe products. It would forever brand all products containing any ingredients that they believe—with no proof whatsoever—COULD POTENTIALLY cause adverse events.” Not deaths. Not actual harm. Not even a serious adverse event. The ingredient could potentially cause an adverse event, which is defined as “any undesirable experience associated with its use.” That is a very low threshold indeed.

Let’s hope some supplement companies don’t inadvertently throw away the many successes we have had in holding Sen. Durbin’s legislation at bay.

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Author of Mandatory Vaccination Bill Facing Recall Efforts

The California state senator whose infamous pro-vaccine bill sailed to victory on the winds of pharmaceutical industry dollars is now in serious hot water with his constituents.

This past June, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 277, a bill that would require parents to vaccinate their children in order to send them to public or private school.

Despite tremendous grassroots voter opposition, special interests won the day. We reported that some of the most vocal proponents of SB 277 received funding from Big Pharma. The top recipient of pharmaceutical donations, coming in at more than $95,000, was Sen. Richard Pan—one of the principle authors of the bill.

SB 277’s approval is a major setback, not just for Californians, but for concerned parents across the country. The California bill will no doubt embolden other state legislatures to similarly kowtow to the vaccine industry and remove non-medical vaccine exemptions.

Now a major recall effort seeks to remove Sen. Pan from office. If the movement garners enough signatures—which must equal 20% of the total votes cast in the election that Sen. Pan won—then there will be a recall election. If he loses that election, Sen. Pan would not be eligible to run in the follow-up election to fill his seat.

To recall Sen. Pan, activists must gather at least 35,926 signatures by the end of December 2015. The other state legislators who voted for the bill are also facing recall efforts.

This is not easy. Since 1913, while 158 recalls have been attempted in California, only nine have qualified for the ballot, and only five have succeeded. On the other hand, even a governor has been successfully recalled.

In addition, Californians have initiated a referendum to overturn SB 277 entirely using California’s referendum system to overturn the law. Remember the quote widely attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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Why We Can’t Trust the Mainstream Media about Drugs and Vaccines

Time magazine’s articles—and advertising—epitomize the problem. Action Alert!

In its July 27 print edition, Time magazine ran a full-page color ad for smokeless tobacco. But what really got our attention were all the drug ads, which continue week after week, and presumably keep the faltering publication alive. The biggest ad, an inside-front-cover three-page spread, was for Xeljanz (tofacitinib citrate), which is aimed at people with rheumatoid arthritis.

As usual, the lawyers for the drug company had provided plenty of warning. Xeljanz “may increase your risk of certain cancers [such as] lymphoma, and well as reduce your white or red blood cell count, opening you up to serious infection.” These are not theoretical risks. The friend of an ANH-USA board member very quickly died from lymphoma caused by the drug, and taking such drugs significantly reduces a patient’s life expectancy.

Time is not full of articles praising drugs, but it does maintain a steady drumbeat of articles by editor Jeffrey Kluger attacking anyone who dares to ask questions about vaccines. And of course vaccines are not only made by the same drug companies advertising in Time; they also represent a huge segment of drug companies’ sales, since patent-protected drug revenue is on the decline and blockbuster drug replacements are not on the horizon. It seems suspicious to us that the magazine devotes so much space, week after week, to the proposition that vaccines are perfect and no one should ask questions about them.

Kluger, in the same issue, made these claims: “You can’t poll a scientific fact. The speed of light is the speed of light (186,282.4 miles per second) whether 90% of people believe it, 25% believe it or 100% have no opinion….And the same is true, too, for the safety and efficacy of vaccines: They’re extraordinarily effective and extraordinarily safe, no matter what the folks in the anti-vaccine fringe have been saying.”

This is, of course, demonstrably untrue, as we have consistently reported. Vaccines are neither “extraordinarily effective” nor “extraordinarily safe.”

Kluger then cites a number of non-facts such as a recent death from measles, the first in decades, that we recently showed was not actually a death from measles at all—something Kluger should surely know. He dismisses those asking questions about vaccines and the relationship of vaccine makers to government as exponents of “silliness,” “nonsense,” and “know-nothingism” who have been appropriately “blow-torched” by a “global opprobrium.”

This month Kluger filed yet another article on the same theme. This time he says that “anti-vaxxers” are “wrong on the science, wrong on the politics, and deeply, morally wrong.” He then endorses a study which suggests that the best way to respond to parental questions and concerns is not to reason or present evidence but to “parade pictures of sick children in front of parents” during a doctor visit when the vaccine can be administered. The trick, he says, is “getting people to act fast. If too much time elapses between image and potential action, the power of the message is lost.”

Is this really what the mainstream media has come to—working to devise the most efficient methods for emotionally manipulating parents into vaccinating their kids? What about the moderation and “grown-up and civil” discourse called for in an earlier Time piece (this one by Joe Klein) on vaccines?

And who exactly is this Jeffrey Kluger who repeatedly says that he represents science against “myth?” If you guessed from his choice of words that he is not a scientist, you guessed right. His résumé says that he majored in political science in college and then earned a law degree, but now appears to earn his living as a journalist or at least partly as a journalist.

Does Kluger receive funds from drug companies? We have no idea, but we would like to hear from him on the subject. Whether or not he personally receives Big Pharma support, Time magazine certainly does, and would likely fail without it.

Of one thing we can be sure: no real scientist would be so dogmatic, emotional, and combative—particularly about a subject for which he appears to have no technical training or background. A real scientist examines all the evidence dispassionately before reaching a conclusion, and the evidence is clear: many vaccines are simply not effective, are dangerous, or both.

Action Alert! Write to Time and tell them they should be ashamed of running such stories repeatedly, week after week, only a few pages from their drug ads. Please send your message immediately.

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Has Science Just Settled the “Low-Fat vs. Low-Carb” Debate for Weight Loss?

The Los Angeles Times says yes, and low-fat won—which will make some big advertisers happy. Unfortunately, the Times made a hash of the actual study.

Here’s the headline: “For fat loss, low-fat diets beat low-carb diets handily, new research finds.” Unfortunately not a word of this is true. The article, which was published in the science section, should instead be under fiction.

Let’s look more closely at the study, which was conducted by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers monitored two groups (one on a low-carb diet, one on a low-fat diet) under close clinical supervision for two weeks. This made it possible to know exactly what they ate. Both groups lost weight—and the low-carb group lost a pound more than the low-fat group.

What did the researchers do then? They decided to employ a much-abused technique, computer modeling, to estimate what would have happened if the experiment had continued for six months. They somehow concluded that the low-fat group, who lost less weight in the actual experiment, would have lost 6.5 pounds more body fat than the low-carb group. These rather bizarre (and openly manipulated) results led the study authors to conclude, “We can definitively reject the claim that carbohydrate restriction is required for body-fat loss.”

Note their statement: carbohydrate restriction is not required for weight loss. This is hardly news, and certainly doesn’t validate low-fat specifically over low-carb as a means of losing weight. Many diets can help people lose body fat, including extreme calorie restriction. But they made no mention of looking at which diets normalize insulin and blood sugar levels more quickly, lose body fat without the cravings associated with other approaches, or help people keep the weight off in the long-term—all of which lower-carb approaches do more effectively than other diets.

Moreover we have limited information about what the subjects actually ate. Somehow we doubt that the low-carb or low-fat meals they were given were comprised of the foods our integrative doctors or the most up-to-date nutritionists would advise.

The lack of any reference to “good” fats versus “bad” fats is a tip-off. All fats are far from the same. We need the good fats not only to thrive, but to burn off the bad fats. Today we know that even the fat deposits inside the body differ. Dr. David William’s last newsletter (Alternatives, August 2015) has a fascinating article about why we need more brown fat in order to control our white fat.

Even government bureaucrats are beginning to see that fat as a general category and cholesterol are not the problem. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently admitted that “cholesterol is [no longer]considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” And, although the agency’s methods are deeply flawed, the FDA is looking into giving consumers more information about the sugar content of food. This is because Americans eat not only too much sugar and other sweeteners, but also high-glycemic carbohydrates that resemble sugar.

Our concern with the mainstream media is, as always, their desperate kowtowing to Big Food and Big Pharma—their big advertisers. Was this LA Times article inspired by the need to keep happy advertisers like Coke, a company whose attempts to muddy the scientific record we discussed recently? Or did the reporter simply not look at the study? We don’t know.

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Action Alert: Shame on Time Magazine!

Related article: Why We Can’t Trust the Mainstream Media about Drugs and Vaccines

Trouble Taking Action? Click Here

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Why Are Some Supplement Companies Thinking about Giving Durbin What He Wants?

The senator’s bill has been repeatedly defeated. Why capitulate now?

A trade journal reports that some in the supplement industry are apparently considering supporting a Durbin-style proposal for a supplement pre-market notification system. It was reportedly discussed at a recent trade meeting.

What is the explanation? One that we have heard is that some supplement companies are seeking to placate industry critics such as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. We previously reported on his seriously flawed (and failed) investigation into some herbal supplement manufacturers. Another possible and even more sinister explanation is that some larger producers are trying to shut out smaller producers who have fewer resources.

Whether the motivation is fear or crony capitalist greed, the supplement industry had better be careful. Once the pre-notification genie is out of the bottle, supplement opponents like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) will likely keep pushing and pushing until supplements are treated identically to drugs, even though drug companies have patents to help pay the billions of dollars often necessary for FDA approval and can charge as much as $100,000 for a single drug treatment. Few supplement companies have billions to spend on one approval, let alone one for each of their supplements. And the market will never support the sort of supplement prices that prescription drugs command.

In the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which regulates supplements, Congress said that supplements should be regulated like food, not drugs. In other words, current law already protects both the general public and supplement companies from such unreasonable and unsupportable regulation efforts of the sort Sen. Durbin and his ilk have been pushing.

All of this is even more important in the light of what is happening on Capitol Hill. Last week, we reported that natural health activists successfully defeated Durbin’s most recent supplement attack, a sneak provision in the Defense bill. But we also warned that Durbin reportedly plans to reintroduce his Dietary Supplement Labeling Act as a standalone bill.

In all of its previous introductions, Durbin’s bill has had two sections. The first sets up a pre-market registration system that would require supplement manufacturers to submit a description of each supplement they produce, a list of all ingredients, and a copy of the label. The second section calls for the creation of a list, with the help of the Institute of Medicine, of supplement ingredients that could cause “potentially serious adverse events.” This section also calls for warning labels on products containing what the government determines to be dangerous ingredients.

You will note that current regulation already ensures that unsafe products either don’t make it to market or are removed from the shelves—provided the FDA does its job and enforces the rules properly. From a consumer safety standpoint, the second section does nothing that isn’t already accomplished under current law—except make it more difficult and costly to produce supplements.

On the other hand, the Durbin bill goes far beyond what current law provides, because it wouldn’t simply remove unsafe products. It would forever brand all products containing any ingredients that they believe—with no proof whatsoever—COULD POTENTIALLY cause adverse events.” Not deaths. Not actual harm. Not even a serious adverse event. The ingredient could potentially cause an adverse event, which is defined as “any undesirable experience associated with its use.” That is a very low threshold indeed.

Let’s hope some supplement companies don’t inadvertently throw away the many successes we have had in holding Sen. Durbin’s legislation at bay.

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Author of Mandatory Vaccination Bill Facing Recall Efforts

The California state senator whose infamous pro-vaccine bill sailed to victory on the winds of pharmaceutical industry dollars is now in serious hot water with his constituents.

This past June, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 277, a bill that would require parents to vaccinate their children in order to send them to public or private school.

Despite tremendous grassroots voter opposition, special interests won the day. We reported that some of the most vocal proponents of SB 277 received funding from Big Pharma. The top recipient of pharmaceutical donations, coming in at more than $95,000, was Sen. Richard Pan—one of the principle authors of the bill.

SB 277’s approval is a major setback, not just for Californians, but for concerned parents across the country. The California bill will no doubt embolden other state legislatures to similarly kowtow to the vaccine industry and remove non-medical vaccine exemptions.

Now a major recall effort seeks to remove Sen. Pan from office. If the movement garners enough signatures—which must equal 20% of the total votes cast in the election that Sen. Pan won—then there will be a recall election. If he loses that election, Sen. Pan would not be eligible to run in the follow-up election to fill his seat.

To recall Sen. Pan, activists must gather at least 35,926 signatures by the end of December 2015. The other state legislators who voted for the bill are also facing recall efforts.

This is not easy. Since 1913, while 158 recalls have been attempted in California, only nine have qualified for the ballot, and only five have succeeded. On the other hand, even a governor has been successfully recalled.

In addition, Californians have initiated a referendum to overturn SB 277 entirely using California’s referendum system to overturn the law. Remember the quote widely attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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Why We Can’t Trust the Mainstream Media about Drugs and Vaccines

Time magazine’s articles—and advertising—epitomize the problem. Action Alert!

In its July 27 print edition, Time magazine ran a full-page color ad for smokeless tobacco. But what really got our attention were all the drug ads, which continue week after week, and presumably keep the faltering publication alive. The biggest ad, an inside-front-cover three-page spread, was for Xeljanz (tofacitinib citrate), which is aimed at people with rheumatoid arthritis.

As usual, the lawyers for the drug company had provided plenty of warning. Xeljanz “may increase your risk of certain cancers [such as] lymphoma, and well as reduce your white or red blood cell count, opening you up to serious infection.” These are not theoretical risks. The friend of an ANH-USA board member very quickly died from lymphoma caused by the drug, and taking such drugs significantly reduces a patient’s life expectancy.

Time is not full of articles praising drugs, but it does maintain a steady drumbeat of articles by editor Jeffrey Kluger attacking anyone who dares to ask questions about vaccines. And of course vaccines are not only made by the same drug companies advertising in Time; they also represent a huge segment of drug companies’ sales, since patent-protected drug revenue is on the decline and blockbuster drug replacements are not on the horizon. It seems suspicious to us that the magazine devotes so much space, week after week, to the proposition that vaccines are perfect and no one should ask questions about them.

Kluger, in the same issue, made these claims: “You can’t poll a scientific fact. The speed of light is the speed of light (186,282.4 miles per second) whether 90% of people believe it, 25% believe it or 100% have no opinion….And the same is true, too, for the safety and efficacy of vaccines: They’re extraordinarily effective and extraordinarily safe, no matter what the folks in the anti-vaccine fringe have been saying.”

This is, of course, demonstrably untrue, as we have consistently reported. Vaccines are neither “extraordinarily effective” nor “extraordinarily safe.”

Kluger then cites a number of non-facts such as a recent death from measles, the first in decades, that we recently showed was not actually a death from measles at all—something Kluger should surely know. He dismisses those asking questions about vaccines and the relationship of vaccine makers to government as exponents of “silliness,” “nonsense,” and “know-nothingism” who have been appropriately “blow-torched” by a “global opprobrium.”

This month Kluger filed yet another article on the same theme. This time he says that “anti-vaxxers” are “wrong on the science, wrong on the politics, and deeply, morally wrong.” He then endorses a study which suggests that the best way to respond to parental questions and concerns is not to reason or present evidence but to “parade pictures of sick children in front of parents” during a doctor visit when the vaccine can be administered. The trick, he says, is “getting people to act fast. If too much time elapses between image and potential action, the power of the message is lost.”

Is this really what the mainstream media has come to—working to devise the most efficient methods for emotionally manipulating parents into vaccinating their kids? What about the moderation and “grown-up and civil” discourse called for in an earlier Time piece (this one by Joe Klein) on vaccines?

And who exactly is this Jeffrey Kluger who repeatedly says that he represents science against “myth?” If you guessed from his choice of words that he is not a scientist, you guessed right. His résumé says that he majored in political science in college and then earned a law degree, but now appears to earn his living as a journalist or at least partly as a journalist.

Does Kluger receive funds from drug companies? We have no idea, but we would like to hear from him on the subject. Whether or not he personally receives Big Pharma support, Time magazine certainly does, and would likely fail without it.

Of one thing we can be sure: no real scientist would be so dogmatic, emotional, and combative—particularly about a subject for which he appears to have no technical training or background. A real scientist examines all the evidence dispassionately before reaching a conclusion, and the evidence is clear: many vaccines are simply not effective, are dangerous, or both.

Action Alert! Write to Time and tell them they should be ashamed of running such stories repeatedly, week after week, only a few pages from their drug ads. Please send your message immediately.

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Has Science Just Settled the “Low-Fat vs. Low-Carb” Debate for Weight Loss?

The Los Angeles Times says yes, and low-fat won—which will make some big advertisers happy. Unfortunately, the Times made a hash of the actual study.

Here’s the headline: “For fat loss, low-fat diets beat low-carb diets handily, new research finds.” Unfortunately not a word of this is true. The article, which was published in the science section, should instead be under fiction.

Let’s look more closely at the study, which was conducted by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers monitored two groups (one on a low-carb diet, one on a low-fat diet) under close clinical supervision for two weeks. This made it possible to know exactly what they ate. Both groups lost weight—and the low-carb group lost a pound more than the low-fat group.

What did the researchers do then? They decided to employ a much-abused technique, computer modeling, to estimate what would have happened if the experiment had continued for six months. They somehow concluded that the low-fat group, who lost less weight in the actual experiment, would have lost 6.5 pounds more body fat than the low-carb group. These rather bizarre (and openly manipulated) results led the study authors to conclude, “We can definitively reject the claim that carbohydrate restriction is required for body-fat loss.”

Note their statement: carbohydrate restriction is not required for weight loss. This is hardly news, and certainly doesn’t validate low-fat specifically over low-carb as a means of losing weight. Many diets can help people lose body fat, including extreme calorie restriction. But they made no mention of looking at which diets normalize insulin and blood sugar levels more quickly, lose body fat without the cravings associated with other approaches, or help people keep the weight off in the long-term—all of which lower-carb approaches do more effectively than other diets.

Moreover we have limited information about what the subjects actually ate. Somehow we doubt that the low-carb or low-fat meals they were given were comprised of the foods our integrative doctors or the most up-to-date nutritionists would advise.

The lack of any reference to “good” fats versus “bad” fats is a tip-off. All fats are far from the same. We need the good fats not only to thrive, but to burn off the bad fats. Today we know that even the fat deposits inside the body differ. Dr. David William’s last newsletter (Alternatives, August 2015) has a fascinating article about why we need more brown fat in order to control our white fat.

Even government bureaucrats are beginning to see that fat as a general category and cholesterol are not the problem. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently admitted that “cholesterol is [no longer]considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” And, although the agency’s methods are deeply flawed, the FDA is looking into giving consumers more information about the sugar content of food. This is because Americans eat not only too much sugar and other sweeteners, but also high-glycemic carbohydrates that resemble sugar.

Our concern with the mainstream media is, as always, their desperate kowtowing to Big Food and Big Pharma—their big advertisers. Was this LA Times article inspired by the need to keep happy advertisers like Coke, a company whose attempts to muddy the scientific record we discussed recently? Or did the reporter simply not look at the study? We don’t know.

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