Herdshare programs, which are private contracts between farmers and individuals who purchase a share in a milk-producing animal, have been getting more legal status in many states. North Dakota and Michigan are the two latest states to take action protecting herdshare programs.
A groundbreaking new study shows that pigs were harmed by the consumption of feed containing genetically modified (GM) crops. GM-fed females had on average a 25% heavier uterus than non-GM-fed females, a possible indicator of disease that requires further investigation. Also, the level of severe inflammation in stomachs was markedly higher in pigs fed on the GM diet. The research results were striking and statistically significant. Pigs with these health problems end up in the food supply. Pigs have a similar digestive system to people, so there is a need to investigate if people are also getting digestive problems from eating GM crops.
The United Nations established the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1962. Over the years, Codex has been embroiled in controversy for a number of reasons, but now our investigations show that Monsanto―one of the world’s largest producers of genetically-modified seeds―is behind a significant number of front groups that control Codex policy. Most recently, more than 50 industry trade groups formed a new alliance called Alliance to Feed the Future. These groups represent multi-national food, biotech, and chemical companies that generate hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of revenue each year. They aim to become the go-to source for “real” information about the junk being sold as “food”.
The California State Assembly has voted to audit the reported abuse of power by the Child Protection Services after the highly publicized case of Anna and Alex Nikolayev, who had their baby removed from their home by force simply because they wanted to seek a second opinion regarding recommended heart surgery on their child. The case drew international attention since the father is a Russian national, and Russia accused the United States of violating the couple's human rights.
A new NIH study proclaiming that Ginkgo biloba causes cancer is so absurd you must wonder if they produced it with a straight face. More important, though, is why—and the reason is truly frightening. It’s part of a system determined to steal all natural health methods and hand them to Big Pharma & Big Medicine for profits.
Chemicals are used to produce 96% of manufactured consumer goods. Many of them are toxic. In 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to regulate the introduction of new or already existing chemicals. Under the TSCA the government must, for the most part, prove that a chemical is unsafe before it can be removed from market, instead of requiring manufacturers to prove that their chemicals are safe in the first place. A recently introduced piece of legislation hopes to plug the holes in the thirty-seven year old TSCA, one of the few pieces of legislation that has never been amended. Toxic chemicals can be found in a tremendous number of everyday products from BPA in food containers to flame retardants on our furniture, which can spread to the dust on the floor that children can ingest when playing. Flame retardant chemicals have been linked to lower IQ and the development of diabetes. Toxic chemicals can cause a number of health problems, and exposure to chemicals in the womb can have long-lasting affects on the child’s life. This bill will go a long way toward getting rid of, or at least identifying, the toxic chemicals that citizens may be encountering on a daily basis.
California nearly lost its almond crop this year, due to a lack of bees. Once a year, in late winter, 1.5 million bee hives from around the country are delivered to these orchards where the bees’ pollination efforts take place over the course of just a few days. It’s the largest mass-pollination effort in the world. This year, however, the unthinkable happened. Many of the 6,000 orchard owners simply could not find enough bees to pollinate their almond trees, at any price. 80 percent of the world’s almonds come from California, and almonds are the number one agricultural product in California. A general consensus among beekeepers is that the bee die-offs are most definitely related to toxic chemicals. Increasingly, a systemic type of pesticide called neonicotinoids is being blamed for bee die-off’s. Neonicotinoids are now used on most of American crops, especially corn. This newer class of chemicals is applied to seeds before planting, allowing the pesticide to be taken up through the plant’s vascular system as it grows. As a result, the chemical is expressed in the pollen and nectar of the plant.
A strong case can be made that the cell has turned out to be a lot more complicated than Darwin or his contemporaries imagined. Not only did they vastly underestimate the complexity of the cell, but it's probably vastly more complex even than we imagine today.
For the last 33 years, David Healy, an Irish psychiatrist and professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales, has written heavily researched university press books and academic journal articles on various aspects of psychopharmaceuticals. His output includes 20 books, 150 peer-reviewed papers and 200 other published works. He is not only well-pedigreed, with degrees and fellowships from Dublin, Galway and Cambridge medical schools, he is a widely recognized expert in both the history and the science of neurochemistry and psychopharmacology. Yet Healy says his output and reputation have had little to no effect—both on the pharmaceutical industry he argues buries relevant information about prescription drug harms, and on the psychiatric and medical professions he claims are being “eclipsed” by drug companies. Americans consume 80 percent of opiate painkillers produced in the world. A January 2011 report from Stanford University Medical School warned that antispychotics are now regularly being prescribed to treat conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia. According to a Feb. 7, 2013 report from Drugs.com, the No. 1 best-selling U.S. drug (in dollar volume) is an atypical antipsychotic for schizophrenia treatment called Abilify. Sales for the last quarter of 2012 soared to $1.5 billion, because Abilify is widely prescribed off-label—i.e., not for schizophrenia in adults, but, for example, for irritability in children. Although Bristol-Myers Squibb, the maker of Abilify, was fined $515 million in September 2007 for recommending off-label uses of Abilify, doctors are still doling out the drug. Why?
The White House’s sweeping mental health initiatives—which rely on psychiatry’s diagnostic procedures—do not take into account the major controversy currently raging over the lack of science behind psychiatry’s methods of diagnosing mental disorders. Should the conversation suggested by the President be restricted to supporting mental health informational initiatives based on a flawed, unsafe diagnosing manual, things may progress as Dr. Allen Frances predicts: "soon most of us will have a fake mental disorder (or a few) and we will live in a Brave New World where nearly everyone uses medicine.”
