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Even advocates of these crops were shaken recently when GM plants 'escaped' from test areas.
By George M. Lamb
The Christian Science Monitor
In rice-growing states, traces of an unapproved genetically modified (GM) rice have been found mixed in with conventional rice meant for human consumption.
Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease
By Jeffrey M. Smith
Institute For Responsible Technology
Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic—the perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image.
Institute For Responsibility Technology
By Jeffrey M. Smith
Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic—the perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image.
Bloomberg
By Matthew Benjamin and Kerry Young
The number of Americans without health insurance probably rose to a record in 2005 as medical costs increased three times as fast as wages, according to forecasts for a Census Bureau report today.
By Christian Nordqvist
Medical News Today
Childhood allergies have become more widespread around the globe since 1991, according to a large study. The most common allergies are hayfever, asthma and eczema. In the UK, a study of 1,700 children found asthma prevalence went up from 18.4% in 1991 to 20.9% in 2003 - for the same period hayfever prevalence went up from 9.8% to 10.1% and eczema rose from 13% to 16%.
Medical News Today
By Christian Nordqvist
Childhood allergies have become more widespread around the globe since 1991, according to a large study. The most common allergies are hayfever, asthma and eczema. In the UK, a study of 1,700 children found asthma prevalence went up from 18.4% in 1991 to 20.9% in 2003 - for the same period hayfever prevalence went up from 9.8% to 10.1% and eczema rose from 13% to 16%.
Professionals offering a variety of alternative approaches to health and well-being are banding together at the local level --in communities scattered nationwide-- to promote an awareness of options to Western allopathic medicine.
Sitting in an Internet cafe on Willamette Falls Drive in historic West Linn, a suburb south of Portland, Oregon, I am being educated about one such wellness community by a local resident, my old friend Donald Altman, author of Meal By Meal, The Art of the Inner Meal and many other books on healing, spirituality and food. He is co-founder of West Linn Counseling and conducts workshops on mindful eating throughout the nation.
This particular organization is composed of 25 business owners in West Linn, all located in a five-block area of Willamette Falls Drive, who have signed on to "promote health and wellness" in their community. Members include chiropractic clinics, counseling centers, massage therapists and bodyworkers, acupuncturists, an organic bodycare store, and a natural health products store.
"We have become a place that attracts people who have been unable to find healing elsewhere," Donald tells me. "This community is dedicated to a spirit of optimism about the future of health and healing. As an organization it has only been around for two years, but we are already known in the region as a wellness village and have drawn many more wellness practitioners."
Periodically I will be profiling wellness communities to spotlight a trend worth watching and encouraging, as our culture continues to institutionalize integrative medicine into our daily lives.
The recently revealed spread of genetically modified rice has critics alarmed on two levels: the problem itself and the fact that authorities suppressed the news.
By Megan Tady
The New Standard
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced that US commercial long-grain rice supplies are contaminated with "trace amounts" of genetically engineered rice unapproved for human consumption.
The recently revealed spread of genetically modified rice has critics alarmed on two levels: the problem itself and the fact that authorities suppressed the news.
The New Standard
By Megan Tady
Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced that US commercial long-grain rice supplies are contaminated with "trace amounts" of genetically engineered rice unapproved for human consumption.
The Nation
Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Troy Duster, Elizabeth Ransom, Winona LaDuke, Peter Singer, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Carlo Petrini, Eliot Coleman & Jim Hightower
Every year the fast-food chains, soda companies and processed-food manufacturers spend billions marketing their products. You see their ads all the time. They tend to feature a lot of attractive, happy, skinny people having fun. But you rarely see what's most important about the food: where it comes from, how it's made and what it contains. Tyson ads don't show chickens crammed together at the company's factory farms, and Oscar Mayer ads don't reveal what really goes into those wieners. There's a good reason for this. Once you learn how our modern industrial food system has transformed what most Americans eat, you become highly motivated to eat something else.
HuffingtonPost.com
By Jane Smiley
Since Reagan's election, our government has catered to the needs of corporations that refuse to accept the destructive consequences of their actions.
Nearly five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, toxic chemical synergies are taking a toll on emergency service workers.
A study of 12,000 firemen and emergency medical workers who worked at the Twin Towers disaster site in New York City has found that on average they have experienced a reduction in lung capacity equivalent to what would normally be caused by 12 years of aging.
Heavy-metal poisoning from exposure to chemicals in the air apparently is the culprit for the premature deaths, chronic illnesses, and reduced lung capacity seen in Ground Zero workers, according to the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
So far the most effective treatment for these maladies has been a detoxification regimen that uses Chelation, a sulfur compound that helps to draw heavy metals from body tissues. After three to four months of this therapy, most poisoning symptoms disappear.
What happened to these thousands of people at the disaster scene --a chemical poisoning that involves a synergy of toxins-- is happening in slow motion to humans throughout the industrialized world. The only available antidote, since we cannot escape these toxins, can be found in detox strategies that we must begin to integrate into our lives.
YuaNet.com
By Anne McElroy Dachel
This commentary is about something I've come to call, "the really big lie," which is surely based on the theory that the masses are more willing to believe totally illogical, absurd propaganda, than a small little lie.
I'm talking about the claim by the medical community, health officials, educators, and a vast parade of reporters, that the epidemic in kids with autism and related disorders overwhelming our schools, is the result of "greater awareness" and "better diagnosing."
IPS
By Julio Godoy
The Panamanian flagged ship Probo Koala unloaded more than 550 tonnes of toxic waste at Abidjan port in Cote d'Ivoire a month back. Emissions from that toxic waste have killed seven people and poisoned thousands.
Modern science continues to affirm the effectiveness of ancient healing techniques that offer proven alternatives to the synthetics belief system.
Though using magnets to heal the human body is a practice dating back several thousand years, only now has medical science gotten around to documenting its medicinal potential in laboratory tests.
The following positive study results prompted the British National Health Service in 2006 to include magnet therapy devices in its health care policy coverage:
--The Journal Of Wound Care published a study in February 2005 that followed 289 patients with leg ulcers who used a magnetic device instead of drugs; 211 of them reported their ulcers had disappeared, and after a year there had been no recurrence. Apparently the magnets stimulate blood circulation.
--A study conducted at the Institute of Neurology in London discovered that magnets may be useful in the rehabilitation of stroke victims. Once again, there was some indication that magnets can stimulate the brain's blood circulation in ways that drugs cannot, with another advantage being that, unlike pharmaceuticals, magnets have no discernible side effects.
The Sidney Morning Herald
By Julie Robotham and Sherrill Nixon
Think of it as a vast experiment in human biology. Put millions of people in a limited space, then crank a few levers: increase the hours they work, and increase the distance they have to travel; tempt them with material goods but undermine their sense of security about the future; allow them almost unlimited access to food, but subtly direct their choice by making grease and sugar most accessible. See what happens.
The results are nearly in. Half a century of postwar growth - driven by escalating production, and flavoured by hard-core consumption and mass migration to cities - is yielding a consistent global pattern.
Food processing has created a 'toxic environment' that dooms many people to obesity, according to a new medical study.
Processed foods and drinks that contain sugars -- and, presumably, synthetic sweeteners -- trick the human body into believing that it's still hungry, says Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatrician writing in the medical journal, Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology and Metabolism.
These additives affect insulin levels, which in turn control appetite and the production of dopamine that stimulates the 'rush' we get from food. As a result, Dr. Lustig believes that processed foods are quite literally addictive.
Hormonal imbalances caused by toxic food accounts for the obesity epidemic that now afflicts the entire industrialized world. At least two-thirds of U.S. citizens are overweight and one-third are obese.
Another recent study, this one appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, described how a single can of soda, if consumed every day, can add 15 pounds of fat in a year.
Dr. Lustig claims that because "of this toxic environment in food," no weight loss program can be effective in the longterm "unless you improve the toxic environment as well." That means completely eliminating all synthetic additives from your diet.
A trend in Australia -- turning sewage into drinking water --may be a harbinger of things to come throughout the world.
Severe water shortages in parts of Australia have prompted government officials to initiate plans to use recycled sewage as a new source of drinking water for cities, using pipelines that would directly connect sewage treatment plants to municipal water supplies in Queensland.
A few voices have been raised pointing out how recycled sewage released into groundwater is already feminizing male fish and changing the basic metabolisms of entire species whenever and wherever they have contact with the effluent. The chief culprits are the female hormone mimic chemicals found in personal care products. Once these estrogen chemicals are excreted and flushed into wastewater systems, the technology isn't sophisticated enough to remove them. Neither are the water purification plants technologically advanced enough to remove these chemicals.
As water shortages increase worldwide due to drought, development, and changing weather patterns, the pressure will only intensify to use recycled wastewater as drinking water. Can anyone now seriously doubt that the stage is set for the emergence of mutant species?
Canadian Business Online
By Zena Olijnyk
When Wal-Mart brings its giant food stores to Canada starting sometime this year, the amount of food labeled as organic sold in Canada will likely jump exponentially. While the world's largest retailer already sells organic products at its U.S. Sam's Clubs and in the so-called "pantry" section of its Canadian Wal-Mart stores, it has decided that offering more organically grown food will spiff up its image as a socially conscious retailer, bring in a more upscale customer-and fatten the bottom line.
n Southern California, Western medicine teams up with acupuncture, yoga and herbs to fight both disease and pain. Finally, this hybrid is going mainstream.
By Hilary E. MacGregor
Times Staff Writer
WHEN a medical crisis hits, people want to know that someone smart in a white coat can prescribe Prozac to boost their mood, perform heart surgery to open their clogged arteries, or administer chemotherapy, radiation or surgery to cure them of cancer.
But growing numbers of Americans are also eager to experiment with alternative therapies. They take herbs to boost their immunity, meditate to calm frayed nerves and seek acupuncture to combat nausea and pain. Two 1998 studies reported that 42% of Americans use alternative medical therapies to treat their conditions — and that, in 1997, Americans made an estimated 629 million office visits to complementary therapy providers. A 2002 government survey found that 36% of adults use some form of complementary and alternative medicine, and if megavitamin therapy and prayers for health are included in the list, the number rises to 62%.
What if everything that medical science thought it knew based on lab tests turned out to be wrong?
For those of you who have read The Hundred Year Lie, you already know that I take issue with laboratory animal testing for being a fundamentally flawed approach in trying to gauge the impact of chemicals on human health. My reasons were twofold-- lab animals metabolize chemicals differently than humans, and lab tests using one chemical at a time cannot duplicate a real world environment in which humans are subjected to hundreds of chemicals simultaneously every day.
Now add a third reason for doubting all of the animal tests done on chemicals over the past 70 years. The hidden element affecting the outcomes of millions of experiments has been the standard food fed to rodents, food which contains high levels of hormones.
Mice and rats used in lab experiments have traditionally been fed a diet that contains soy as a key source of protein. Since at least 1931 it has been known that soy contains estrogen-like chemicals called phytoestrogens. But until now scientists have not considered the extent to which these estrogens can skew test results. The chemicals disrupt natural hormone levels in animals much as they do in humans, and can disrupt normal growth and metabolism development, all of which can render invalid any studies that investigatie the effects of synthetic chemicals on hormones or even disease differences between males and females.
Dr. Julius Thigpen, a microbiologist at the National institute of Environmental Health Sciences, was one of the first to sound the alarm this year after fellow scientists were unable to repeat some experiments and produce the same results. He investigated and found the lab animal diet was causing the variations. He reported his findings to a scientific journal and was rejected "because they didn't think it was important," he relates.
Other scientists tested the rodent food and came up with similar results and soon a revolution in thinking was underway. "This is a major problem," confessed a biologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. At the University of Colorado, Leslie Leinwand, a molecular biologist, bemoans how "we can't go back and do 20 years of experiments all over again."
It is truly remarkable how modern medical science has traditionally disparaged the effects of diet on all aspects of human health, and now scientists must confront the prospect that their entire careers have been based on faulty assumptions and invalid test results due to having overlooked the impact of diet on lab animals.
So is there anyone left who doubts that we are all guinea pigs in a vast chemical experiment in which not science nor government nor manufacturers really know what is safe?
It misses the deadline for a ruling on another controversial chemical in its 10-year review.
By Marla Cone
Los Angeles Times Staff
Nearing the end of a 10-year review of all pesticides, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to ban a farm chemical that has tainted water and proved deadly to birds, but the agency approved continued use of 32 other widely used insecticides.
A reader's experience with bottled water is worth sharing, along with some tips for avoiding tap water marketed as pure spring water.
One reader asked for me to provide a list of bottled waters pumped from natural aquifers. Based on available information and studies, these waters include: Perrier, Evian, Calistoga, Crystal, Fiji, and Poland Springs.
For another perspective on bottled water, a reader named Gina wrote in with the following experience:
Hi. The Hundred Year Lie Looks really interesting. I have to make a comment on bottled water though. I only purchase distilled water. Because years ago I bought water that was from a glacier aquifier and got extremely sick from it. After drinking some grey spots grew on the inside of the bottle that looked and smelt like mold and also later a black gooy substance appeared in the bottle which later hardened. Eventually, about one and one half years later the water was tested by a government agency and found to have black plant material in it. I spoke to the man who did the actual testing and he said that he NEVER had seen that in bottled water before. The person who was assigned to my case insisted that it was normal for bottled water to have this in it. He admitted that the water facility had been checked and that their filters were not working, but remember it took almost two years for this to happen, so what ever the contaminents were ingested by other people than me. The water was never recalled and there was no public notification of what was found in it. Also, my brother notified me that a government health agency in Great Britian had traced 600 cases of Lou Gerihgs disease to bottled spring that had a bacteria that could cause that disease. Just food for thought. Gina
By Michael Janofsky
The New York Times
Washington - Unions representing thousands of staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency say the agency is bending to political pressure and ignoring sound science in allowing a group of toxic chemicals to be used in agricultural pesticides.
We may be deluding ourselves when we buy bottled water expecting it to be superior to tap water.
Many of us who buy bottled water do so in the belief that by avoiding municipal tap water, we are taking advantage of a healthier option that exposes us to many fewer chemical contaminants.
This is a Myth We Cherish that didn't make it into the current edition of The Hundred Year Lie but will someday!
Rather than being drawn from pristine springs and mountaintop glaciers, half of the bottled water sold in the U.S. comes directly from municipal tap water supplies.
Consider how severely we are being ripped off. When we buy a bottle of water that is nothing but tap water, we pay up to 10,000 times the price we would pay if we simply filled our bottle up from the tap in our own kitchen. Some people spend more on bottled water every week than they do on gasoline.
Here are some of the biggest tap water offenders in the bottled water industry:
--Aquafina is North America's best-selling brand, owned by the Pepsi company.
--Dasani is another big-seller and is owned by the Coca-Cola company.
--Alaska Premium Glacier water is drawn from the municipal water system of Juneau, Alaska.
Much of this information and much more, comes from two studies:
--"In The Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry," by the Polaris Institute in Ottawa, Canada.
--"Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype." published by the Natural Resources Defense Council.