(1) Deaths and hospitalizations from prescription and over-the-counter drugs tripled in the U.S. between 1998 and 2005.

An analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal found that 467,809 serious complications from legal drug use were reported during that period, while the number of deaths tripled. More prescriptions are being written than ever before and the interactions between all of these various drugs are taking a devastating toll. Women were victims more often than men. Among the 15 drugs most often linked with serious side effects and deaths were the antidepressant Paxil, the arthritis drug Remicade, and the painkiller Oxycontin.

(2) Fumes from microwave popcorn are harming consumers. The first reports of a fatal lung disease occurring as a result of contact with diacetyl, a chemical used in artificial butter flavorings added to microwave popcorn, came from food factories where hundreds of workers have reported lung damage from exposure to diacetyl.

Now reports are emerging of consumers who microwave a lot of artificial buttered popcorn coming down with the same lung symptoms. A case in Denver illustrates the problem. A man who consumed several bags of microwaved popcorn a day developed progressively worsening respiratory symptoms, a condition that stopped only when he stopped eating the popcorn. A team of medical researchers measured airborne levels of diacetyl in the patient's home after the popcorn was microwaved, and found levels "similar to those reported in the microwave oven exhaust area at the quality assurance unit of the popcorn plant where the affected employees work."

While the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association has warned its members to reduce diacetyl levels in butter flavorings, no such warning has been given to consumers. So consider yourself warned by reading these words!

(3) A study in the Journal of Environmental Quality has raised an alarm about vegetables absorbing antibiotics as a result of irrigation water being contaminated by cattle manure from cattle injected with antibiotics.

Three food crops were analyzed --corn, lettuce and potatoes-- and all three were found to have the antibiotic sulfamethazine in the plant leaves and concentrated in plant tissue. Other root crops such as carrots and radishes may be even more susceptible to contamination.

The result of this antibiotic absorption into vegetables is an accelerated fostering of antimicrobial resistance in vegetable eaters, which is fast rendering antibiotics ineffective for treatment in humans.

There is another angle here which I want to point out. Remember the scare over spinach contamination with e.coli last year? The theory was that the e.coli bacteria had been absorbed by the spinach as a result of irrigation water having been contaminated by animals.

This principle that vegetables absorb antibiotics and bacteria from irrigation water may also apply to pesticides. Even if we wash the produce thoroughly, pesticides still probably can be found in the plant tissues and leaves, which means the level of pesticides being absorbed by consumers of non-organic produce is much higher than previously thought.

(4) Pharmaceutical companies want to 'treat' precocious puberty. From Britain come news reports indicating that more boys and girls are entering puberty at the ages of six or seven than ever before, a trend identified in The Hundred Year Lie as evidence of a mutant species emergence resulting from chemical exposures.

The American Academy of Pediatrics wants to lower the age of 'normal' puberty to as young as seven years old from twelve to make the problem go away, while drug companies are wanting public health institutions to declare the desirability of treating precocious puberty with drugs that block the hormonal changes from taking place. The hormone-blocking drugs Gonapeptyl and Decapeptyl have already been licensed in Britain for use in children, targeting girls who reach puberty before their ninth birthday and boys who reach it before the age of ten.

Sociologists and psychologists worry about the social repercussions of young children being able to produce children, in addition to the effects of mass doping children in an attempt to prevent these hormonal changes. We all need to be equally concerned about WHY precocious puberty is happening-- stress has been mentioned as a factor, even obesity, but so have the synthetic chemicals in diet.