A satirical statement, of course, but wouldn't those headlines make the old girl smile and lift her hatchet in exaltation? Carrie was an early leader in the temperance movement who was well known for wielding a sharp hatchet against saloons of her choice. 

No doubt this upcoming action would have been exciting for her but her great, great grandson is not threatening the FDA for the same reasons that she had when rampaging through John L. Sullivan's saloon, smashing liquor bottles and hacking the fine mahogany bar. Carrie's direct descendent is set to swing the hatchet at the FDA for their approval of aspartame as a food additive which has some dangerous and deadly side-effects. Ignorance is one thing but complicity in a scheme to protect the profits of aspartame manufacturers and distributors over the health of those who use their products is unfathomable. The industry and controlling agencies should be held accountable.

Aspartame contains ten percent methanol and when it breaks down formaldehyde is formed. That deadly carcinogen is capable of producing birth defects such as autism and a host of other diseases. Oddly enough, ethanol alcohol, i.e., drinking alcohol, is the only known antidote for methanol poisoning and by consuming a small amount daily would serve to prevent methanol from metabolizing into formaldehyde. This simple process could provide great progress in the prevention of numerous diseases of civilization (DOC).

While Carrie would probably be overjoyed that her direct descendant would take on a federal agency, she would on the other hand, deplore his agnostic views and promotion of alcohol indulgence.

He is a supporter of Dr. Monte's theory that a small amount of alcohol, one or two drinks a day, is absolutely essential to ward off the ...

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) require more pesticide use on crops, say the authors of a 16-year study published in Environmental Sciences Europe. According to the researchers, 527 million pounds of a toxic herbicide have inundated farmlands since 1996. What’s more, this abhorrent amount is much greater than that promised by Monsanto, which claims that GM crops require smaller doses of herbicides like the company’s best-selling Roundup Ready.

This study found, however, that although farmers did reduce Roundup Ready use by 2 percent between 1996 and 1999, herbicide use resurged with a vengeance thereafter. This was a result of the emergence of “superweeds” that resist herbicides, requiring farmers to use more of it with each application.

Herbicide and Pesticide Use Damage Humans, Environment

These “superweeds” have become resistant to glyphosate, a chemical found in Roundup Ready. Rootworms, too, may be becoming resistant according to ongoing research by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Additionally, a recent French study by the University of Caen found glyphosate and herbicides like Roundup to be actively toxic to human cells—findings which led to Russia’s suspension of Monsanto crop imports. Earth Open Source, a nonprofit organization with volunteers as well as several international scientists and researchers, has linked glyphosate with birth defects. Worse (but predictable) is that in 1993 Monsanto ...

Russian researchers will stream a live experiment to show the effects of GMO feed on rats. This comes after a French study found GMOs to have negative effects on rats, which lead to a provisional Russian suspension on imported Monsanto genetically modified corn.

Russian Scientists Condemn GMOs, Plan a Unique Experiment

French scientists at the University of Caen sounded the alarm on September 19 after publishing images from their study of tumors on rats fed American GM maize. The National Association for Genetic Safety (NAGS) researchers in Russia have publicly condemned genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and have declared plans to conduct an experiment which members of the public can see, allowing the latter to formulate well-informed opinions about GMOs themselves.

These researchers will install web cameras in the cages of four groups of rats.

• Group 1 will be fed a diet high in GM soybeans and corn.
• Group 2 will be fed a diet low in GM soybeans and corn.
• Group 3 will be fed a diet with no GMOs.
• Group 4 will be fed a diet with standard rat feed.

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GMOs are not the answer, Nestlé personnel says, but they’ll follow the money. Nestlé has taken measures to calculate its water footprint and educate farmers to practice sustainable farming, but has meanwhile wiggled over $1 million to the “Say No to 37” campaign. (The campaign fights the proposal to label genetically modified organisms—GMOs–in California.)

Nestlé Supports Sustainability (Or Not)

Nestlé has been caught contradicting itself, however. While one of its hands pushes against GMO-labeling, the other—the Swiss one—is championing sustainable agriculture. Hans Jöhr, Nestlé’s corporate head of sustainable agriculture, proclaims that GM isn’t the solution to world hunger.

“There are a lot of new breeding technologies today that don’t use GM food. You can do a lot of things without GM. GM per se is not a golden bullet, but may be an interesting tool in the box.”

While Jöhr may have the right idea, Nestlé USA isn’t cooperating.

“We have a very simple way of looking at GM: listen to what the consumer wants. If they don’t want it in products, you don’t put it in them.”

Consumers Uninformed, Betrayed by FDA

The problem with that “very simple way of looking at GM” is that North American consumers don’t want GMOs in their food. Back in March, the Food and Drug Administration deleted 1 million signatures on the “Just Label It” Campaign calling for GMO labeling. In one survey, The Hill’s Mark Mellman found that “voters express ...

If the news media had to work for a living, this is what they would all be asking right now. The reason is simple. The projections the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made for Representative Ryan's budget imply that he literally wants to shut down the federal government.

His budget implies that after three decades the federal government will have no money to spend on health research, education, highways, airports, and other infrastructure, the Food and Drug Administration and most other activities that we associate with the federal government. His budget has money for Social Security, Medicare and other health programs and the Defense Department. That's it.

This is not a vicious anti-Ryan attack coming from hyper-partisan Democrats. This is what the analysis of his budget by the non-partisan CBO shows. It's right there in the fifth row of Table 2.
The table shows that in 2040, Representative Ryan would allot an amount equal to 4.75 percent of GDP to all these other areas of government including defense spending. By 2050, Ryan's allocation for these areas, including defense, falls to 3.75 percent of GDP.

The defense budget is currently a bit over 4.0 percent of GDP. Ryan has indicated that he would like to maintain or even increase this level of spending. The arithmetic is then straightforward. In 2040, Ryan would leave less than 0.75 percent of GDP for areas of spending that currently require more than five times this amount. In 2050, all these areas of spending would literally have to be zeroed out as defense spending will take up every cent and more that Ryan has left in his budget.

It is important to understand that CBO tried to accurately present the implications of the budget that Representative Ryan gave them. CBO works for Congress. These are career civil servants. They cannot be easily fired, but if CBO's staff deliberately misrepresented a ...

In November, Californians will vote on Proposition 37, a requirement to label genetically engineered foods, a prospect the pesticide and processed food industries are not happy about. According to an analysis of campaign finance reports by Right To Know, an advocacy group promoting the ballot initiative, chemical and processed food companies recently contributed nearly $10 million to “No on 37,” which describes itself as “a coalition of family farmers, grocers, small businesses, and food producers” against food labeling.

Funding from pesticide and seed companies now tops $7 million, with the biggest contributions from Dupont Pioneer, Bayer Crop science and BASF Plant Science. Genetically engineered crops are designed to be resistant to toxic pesticides and herbicides patented by these companies. But the resistant seeds have spurred the growth of “super weeds,” which require even more herbicide. In 2008, GE crop acres required over 26 percent more pounds of herbicides per acre than acres planted to conventional varieties. It’s not just the weeds that are mutating — “super insects” are also starting to become a serious problem. Chemical companies profit enormously from this GE arms race, which gives farmers little choice but to buy bigger, more poisonous batches of pesticides and new strains of seeds engineered to withstand them.

Besides the chemical industry, companies including ...

In principle the country faces a choice this fall between a moderate conservative, President Obama, and Governor Romney, an extreme conservative who wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare and eliminate most of the services that the public expects from the federal government. The reason why this choice only exists in principle is that the media have worked hard to conceal Representative Ryan’s extreme positions from the public. Now that Governor Romney has implicitly embraced these positions by selecting Representative Ryan as his vice-presidential nominee, it remains to be seen whether the media will does it job.

First, in spite of all the name-calling about President Obama being a Kenyan socialist, he has pushed an agenda that most Republicans would have been comfortable with 20 years ago. His health care plan was put forward by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 1992, before Governor Romney put it in place in Massachusetts. His Wall Street reform leaves the too-big-to-fail banks bigger than ever, even after they helped to inflate a housing bubble, the collapse of which brought the economy to its knees.

And, running large deficits in a downturn was a practice that Obama could tie to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes. It would be difficult to find a policy pushed by our Kenyan socialist president that would make a Nixon Republican unhappy.  

By contrast, Representative Ryan has an extreme right-wing agenda that predates both Great Society and the New Deal. He has put forward plans that ...

There are some policies that are pretty much no-brainers. We all agree that the Food and Drug Administration should keep dangerous drugs off the market. We all agree that the government should provide police and fire protection. And, we pretty much all agree that workers should be able to count on at least some minimal pay for a day’s work.

The minimum wage is non-controversial. The vast majority of people across the political spectrum support the minimum wage. In fact, one of the big accomplishments of the Gingrich Congress in 1996 was a 22 percent increase in the minimum wage. The only real issue is how high it should be. There are good reasons for believing that the minimum wage should be considerably higher than it is today.

At the current rate of $7.25 an hour, a full-time year-round worker would have gross pay of less than $15,000 a year. This is less than half of what the average Fortune 500 CEO makes in a day. It would be hard enough for a single person to survive on this income, imagine trying to support a child or even two on this money. And, close to 40 percent of the workers who would be benefited by a minimum wage increase have kids.

The counter-argument against raising the minimum wage is that it would actually hurt the people we are trying to help by reducing employment. There is little basis for this claim. The impact of the minimum wage on employment is one of the most heavily researched topics in economics.

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The Food and Drug Administration has been found to have launched a massive surveillance campaign targeting its own scientists for writing letters to journalists, members of Congress and President Obama. The scientists were expressing their concern over the FDA’s approval of medical imaging devices for colonoscopies and mammograms that could endanger patients with high levels of radiation. The covert spying operation led the agency to monitor the scientists’ computers at work and at home, copying emails and thumb drives and even monitoring individual messages line by line as they were being composed in real time. The agency also created an enemies list. We’re joined by the FDA whistleblowers’ attorney, Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center. "For the first time, we now have a glimpse into what domestic surveillance of whistleblowers looks like in this country with the modern technological developments," Kohn says. "The agency [sought] to destroy the reputation of these whistleblowers forever."

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: The  READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

Dear Mrs. Obama,

I am writing out of deep concern over Let’s Move’s partnerships with the United Fresh Produce Association and the Produce Marketing Association. These two groups have lobbied to kill a vital pathogen testing program. While the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools program is to be applauded, its association with these trade groups is not.

You may be unaware of a small produce testing program tucked away at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) called the Microbiological Data Program (MDP). At a cost of only $4.5 million a year, it’s one of the most efficient and successful uses of taxpayer dollars; and yet, it’s been zeroed out of the 2013 budget. Here is how Food Safety News recently described it:

This “tiny” program was launched in 2001 simply to collect data about fresh produce contamination, but it now regularly sparks produce recalls when participating state labs find pathogens. Perhaps more importantly, the labs upload any positive test results to the Centers for Disease Control’s PulseNet, which helps public health officials link food borne illness cases to food products. MDP is also the only federal program that tests for non-O157 E. coli strains like the one that caused the deadly, high profile sprout outbreak in Germany last year.

While ...

We’ve gone on at great lengths discussing the dangers of genetic modification. Monsanto’s GMO corn has been linked to weight gain and organ function disruption, while GMO crops and pesticides destroy our farmland and environment.  According to the Alliance of Natural Health, the grandchildren of rats fed GMO corn were born sterile. GMO is just one of those things to avoid, but with our own government in bed with Monsanto, it’s not easily done. Monsanto has recently launched a proverbial war against the open labeling of genetically modified foods, and only through activism and awareness can it be overcome.

The People Versus GMO

In February of this year, Vermont contemplated the Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act. The proposed bill prohibits GMO food producers from using keywords like “natural,” “naturally made,” “naturally grown,” and “all natural” to describe GMO ingredients and products. In the same month, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported that nearly 20 states were considering similar programs. Public surveys and studies also show a whopping 90 percent of the U.S. in favor of such practices.

In theory, this should make California’s GMO labeling initiative, which would require all foods within the state made with GM ingredients to carry a label stating so, a shoo-in. But let’s not get so hasty.

Leaders in the disinformation campaign launched against the labeling initiative cry out that it would be—like the infamous ...

Senator Sanders introduces an amendment to the farm bill that would require labeling of foods produced through genetic engineering or derived from organisms that have been genetically engineered.

The measure also would require the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to report to Congress within two years on the percentage of food and beverages in the United States that contain genetically-engineered ingredients.

Drugs are cheap. Patent monopolies are expensive. These are simple facts that everyone should know but for some reason few do.

The point here is simple; the vast majority of drugs are cheap to produce. Chain drug stores sell hundreds of generic drugs for $5-$7 per prescription. They can do this profitably because few drugs require expensive chemicals or manufacturing processes.

However, many brand drugs sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per prescription. This is due to the fact that drug companies have patent monopolies on these drugs. The government will arrest anyone who produces these drugs without the permission of the patent holder. Since drugs can be essential for people’s health and/or life, if they can find a way to pay any price demanded by the drug companies, they will.

The higher prices due to patent monopolies are the reason that many people have difficulty paying for drugs. If all drugs were sold in a free market as generics, paying for drugs would not be a serious issue except for the very poor.

Of course, patent protection is the way in which drug companies finance their research. It costs a lot of money to research new drugs and then test them to establish their safety and effectiveness and bring them through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.

However, there are more efficient mechanisms than patent monopolies to finance drug research. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing one such mechanism, a prize system, be adopted to support research on AIDS drugs.

This system, which has been proposed by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, among others, would set up a $3 billion-a-year prize fund to buy out existing and future patents for AIDS drugs. The fund would compensate drug companies and researchers for their work. The patent would then be placed in the public domain so the drug could be sold in the free market as a generic. AIDS patients would no longer ...

A federal judge’s decision to block imports of a drug used in executions will leave states to rely more on a substitute drug that could itself be getting scarce — developments that raise questions about both how these drugs are regulated and whether states will have the drugs they need to continue capital punishment by lethal injection. 

Over the past three decades, lethal injection has become the primary method of execution in the United States because it is widely viewed as the most humane alternative. Thirty-five states and the federal government use this method and more than 1,100 inmates have been put to death by lethal injection.

State justice or corrections departments have conducted these executions by administering the anesthetic sodium thiopental in a lethal dosage on its own, or as part of a three-step “cocktail” in which sodium thiopental is followed by pancuronium bromide, a paralytic agent, then potassium chloride, which stops the heart and causes death.

But in late March, a federal judge blocked importation of sodium thiopental, ruling that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ignored the law by allowing it to be imported into the country without following regulatory protocol. The drugs were slated for executions, a purpose unapproved by the agency — and unlikely to ever be approved by the agency. Sodium thiopental is only available from overseas, because its U.S. manufacturer, Hospira Inc., stopped making it 2011, as a result of controversies over its use in executions.

Search for an alternative 

The logical alternative to sodium thiopental is pentobarbital, an anesthetic that causes people to lose consciousness, sensation, and memory. Since 2010, 12 state justice departments have used pentobarbital, a drug veterinarians also administer to euthanize animals, to execute 47 inmates, ...

This week was packed with incriminating evidence linking the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA) to an array of health risks. As we reported last week, a new study found regular, low-dose exposure to BPA might be far more dangerous than previously believed. Meanwhile, a University of Missouri report added to the growing pile of evidence that fetal exposure to the chemical can increase one’s likelihood of obesity, while a UK-based nonprofit organization, CHEM Trust, released a  READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

There is a great controversy that is raging between good and evil at the soda fountain or pop machine but the general public does not seem to be aware of it. The implications or consequences of the dietary changes that have occurred since introduction of artificial sweeteners into our lives has dramatically increased but in many cases, silently. However, there are countless medical doctors, scientists and researchers that are aware of the effects but their voices are largely drowned out by the industry.

 

As in politics and other endeavors where mind-control plays a  prominent role, advertising and propaganda are the most effective tools of those who are pitching a program or a product.  The reasons for large infusions of cash could be to cover corporate wrongdoing, agency corruption, incompetency or just to hide plain carelessness but usually, profit motive is the driving force.

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

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

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

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

While the FDA continues to fall behind many nations in the ban due to ‘lack of scientific evidence’, it seems that the agency secretly doesn’t want the ban altogether. The recent decision made by ...

If you are the maker or seller of health supplements, or follow the decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration, then you probably know of the blatant corruption and injustice revolving around the FDA. Through examining and following the FDA’s decisions, anyone can see that the organization continuously pushes pharmaceutical drugs while censoring health food and supplements, and their ability to heal. Such is the case with a company known as Fleminger, Inc. and their product, green tea.

Court Rules FDA is Harshly Censoring Foods and Supplements

In 2004, Fleminger Inc. submitted a health claim petition to the FDA for their green tea product. Scientific research is available showcasing green tea’s ability to boost the immune system, promote graceful aging, and help to fight cancers, and so Fleminger Inc. rightfully though to promote these health advantages. But the FDA responded a year later with proposed disclaiming stating “FDA concludes that it is highly unlikely that green tea reduces the risk” of breast cancer and prostate cancer – advantages Fleminger Inc. wanted to promote. In 2010, after threatening to seize Fleminger Inc.’s products and use of exact language proposed by the FDA, the organization sent over another revised claim which they insisted the company use:

“Green tea may reduce the risk of breast or prostate cancer. FDA does not agree that green tea may reduce the risk because there is very little scientific evidence for the claim.”

Being shocked and appalled by the FDA’s force, Fleminger created a suit in the US District Court. The Food and Drug Administration simple gave Fleminger no choice but ...

On Friday, March 16, 2012, Occupy Monsanto’s agents of change with the Genetic Crimes Unit (GCU), a group designed to protect America from genetically modified foods, will wear bio-hazmat suits when they visit Congress. The group will gather at Capitol South Metro station at noon on March 16 to highlight how chemical company Monsanto is contaminating our political process. The GCU opposes Monsanto’s bid to increase spraying of food with toxic weed killers like 2,4 D (the main ingredient in  READ FULL POST 2 COMMENTS

A new report from the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security is likely to fan rather than extinguish the debate over the safety of X-ray body scanners deployed at airports across the country.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and other lawmakers have called on the Transportation Security Administration to conduct a new, independent health study. No such tests were carried out for the report, which instead relied on previous radiation tests, most of which have been available on TSA’s website.

"This report is not the report I requested," Collins said in a statement to ProPublica. "An independent study is needed to protect the public and to determine what technology is worthy of taxpayer dollars."

The amount of radiation emitted by the body scanners, known as backscatters, is “negligible” and “below acceptable limits,” according to the report obtained by ProPublica and scheduled for public release on Tuesday.

But the 28-page report also notes that not all TSA screeners have completed required radiation safety training. Inspectors found inconsistencies in how the machines are calibrated to ensure radiation safety and image quality. And the TSA made more than 3,500 maintenance calls in the first year the scanners were deployed, meaning that, on average, each machine needed service more than once a month.

X-ray body scanners became part of routine screening at airports nationwide after the underwear bomber tried to blow up a plane on Christmas 2009. The machines emit very small doses of ionizing radiation, the type of radiation that has been shown to cause cancer.

Radiation ...

It seemed simple enough at the time. In 2009, John Harrison, a 63–year-old oil industry sales manager in Mission, Texas, had surgery to repair the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, a routine procedure that usually requires at most a single night’s stay in the hospital, followed by physical therapy. For Harrison, however, there was nothing routine about the ordeal that ensued.

In the weeks following the surgery, his scar turned bright red, hot to the touch, and oozed thick fluid that looked “like butter squeezed from a bag.” Alarmed, Harrison’s wife, Laura, called The Methodist Hospital in Houston, where the surgery was performed. The doctor urged Harrison to immediately make the seven-hour drive back to Houston for an emergency checkup.

That night, surgeons opened up Harrison’s shoulder and found that infection had eaten away part of his shoulder bone and rotator cuff. Screws and metal hardware surgeons placed in his shoulder had pulled loose. Sutures had come undone. Surgeons cleaned out Harrison’s shoulder, installed two drains and gave him antibiotics to battle the infection.

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Despite growing fears over the health effects of a chemical found in many baby bottles and a host of other products, federal regulators have done little to protect the public, according to a new report from a nonprofit research group.

The agencies’ plodding action on Bisphenol-A, known as BPA, despite a stream of research pointing to serious risks, doesn’t bode well for attempts to address related chemicals that may pose similar dangers but haven’t been studied as much, the report’s lead author said.

“The sluggishness of the agencies means that there’s continued exposure in the meantime and a kind of flying-blind mentality,” said Noah Sachs, a law professor at the University of Richmond and an author of the report for the Center for Progressive Reform, which focuses on public health regulations.

Recent studies point to BPA’s ability to interfere with the body’s hormone system, potentially leading to a variety of health problems, including damage to the reproductive system and the brain, particularly in children. Eleven states have banned the chemical’s use in certain products, typically baby bottles and other children’s goods; Canada, China and the European Union have similar restrictions.