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April 7, 2011

A new paper shows that consuming genetically modified (GM) corn or soybeans leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, particularly in livers and kidneys. By reviewing data from 19 animal studies, Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and others reveal that 9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. The kidneys of males fared the worst, with 43.5% of all the changes. The liver of females followed, with 30.8%. The report, published in Environmental Sciences Europe on March 1, 2011, confirms that “several convergent data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems as end points of GMO diet effects.” The authors point out that livers and kidneys “are the major reactive organs” in cases of chronic food toxicity.

“Other organs may be affected too, such as the heart and spleen, or blood cells,” stated the paper. In fact some of the animals fed genetically modified organisms had altered body weights in at least one gender, which is “a very good predictor of side effects in various organs.”

The GM soybean and corn varieties used in the feeding trials “constitute 83% of the commercialized GMOs” that are currently consumed by billions of people. While the findings may have serious ramifications for the human population, the authors demonstrate how a multitude of GMO-related health problems could easily pass undetected through the superficial and largely incompetent safety assessments that are used around the world.

One of the most glaring faults in the current regulatory regime is the short duration of animals feeding studies. The industry limits trials to 90 days at most, with some less than a month. Only two studies reviewed in this new publication were over 90 days—both were non-industry research.

Short studies could easily miss many serious effects of GMOs. It is well established that some pesticides and drugs, for example, can create effects that are passed on through generations, only showing up decades later. IN the case of the drug DES (diethylstilbestrol), “induced female genital cancers among other problems in the second generation.” The authors urge regulators to require long-term multi-generational studies, to “provide evidence of carcinogenic, developmental, hormonal, neural, and reproductive potential dysfunctions, as it does for pesticides or drugs.”

Nearly all GM crops are described as “pesticide plants.” They either tolerate doses of weed killer, such as Roundup, or produce an insecticide called Bt-toxin. In both cases, the added toxin—weedkiller or bug killer—is found inside the corn or soybeans we consume.

Read More At www.FamilySurvivalCenter.com

What is potassium iodide?
Potassium iodide is the potassium salt form of iodide, a naturally occurring substance.

Potassium iodide is an expectorant. It thins mucus secretions in the respiratory tract that may be caused by chronic respiratory problems such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema.

Potassium iodide is also used to protect the thyroid gland from radiation injury before and following administration of radioactive iodide (e.g., for diagnostic purposes) and in radiation emergencies (e.g., accidental exposure to radiation).

Potassium iodide may also be used for purposes other than those listed here.

Learn More at www.FamilySurvivalCenter.com

Today marks nine months since the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and sending millions of gallons of crude oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.

Though the gushing well was capped last July, oil continues to wash ashore along the Gulf Coast. BP’s oil is also washing up in people’s bodies, raising concerns about long-term health effects.

This month the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released the results of tests performed on blood samples collected from Gulf residents. Whole blood samples were collected from 12 people between the ages of 10 and 66 in September, November and December and analyzed by a professional lab in Georgia, with the findings interpreted by environmental chemist and LEAN technical adviser Wilma Subra.

The individuals tested were two boys ages 10 and 11, four men and six women. They included cleanup workers on Orange Beach, Ala., crabbers from the Biloxi, Miss. area and people living on Perdido Key, Ala.

Four of the people tested — including three adults and the 10-year-old — showed unusually high levels of benzene, a particularly toxic component of crude oil. Subra compared the levels found in the test subjects to the levels found in subjects in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a research program conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Specifically, Subra compared the benzene levels in the Gulf residents to the NHANES 95th percentile value — that is, the score below which 95 percent of the NHANES subjected tested. In other words, she compared the benzene levels found in Gulf residents to some of the highest levels found in the general population.

That comparison shows cause for concern, as the benzene levels in the blood of four Gulf residents ranged between 11.9 and 35.8 times higher than the NHANES 95th percentile value of 0.26 parts per billion. Benzene is known to cause a host of health problems including anemia, irregular menstrual periods, ovarian shrinkage and leukemia.

Read More At www.FamilySurvivalCenter.com

(NaturalNews) A swine flu pandemic is sweeping through Britain despite the fact that 70 percent of Britain’s over-65 population was vaccinated against swine flu last year. This year, that number is nearly the same — 68.5% — but flu vaccine proponents insist that until everyone is vaccinated, the flu will continue to infect people.

What these vaccine advocates absolutely will not admit, however, is how many of those who are sick with the flu this year also got vaccinated last year. This little detail is left out of every mainstream media report on vaccines and the flu. They simply refuse to mention this all-important number, leaving readers to leap to the incorrect conclusion that only those who were not vaccinated get sick with the flu.

Most infected patients were previously vaccinated
That assumption is false. In fact, of the 450 critical care beds in England that are now occupied by flu patients, I have no doubt that most of those infected patients are people who received flu vaccines in the past.

Such statistics are never made available to the public or the press, of course. To release such statistics would expose the Great Lie of the vaccine industry: That flu vaccines simply don’t work on 99 percent of people!

In fact, the people who are most susceptible to catching the flu are precisely the very same people who get vaccinated. Why is that? Because vaccines weaken the immune system in the long run, leaving you more vulnerable to future infections. They deny your immune system the opportunity to practice its own adaptive response to invading microorganisms or viruses, thereby causing your immune system to atrophy in the same way that a wheelchair-bound person will experience leg muscle atrophy.

Read Full Article Here

Source: FluorideAction.org – PRNewswire

Exposure to fluoride may lower children’s intelligence says a study pre-published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (online December 17, 2010).

Fluoride is added to 70% of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, “This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children’s blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children.”

“What is also striking is that the levels of the fluoride in the community where the lowered IQs were recorded were lower than the EPA’s so-called ‘safe’ drinking water standard for fluoride of 4 ppm and far too close for comfort to the levels used in artificial fluoridation programs (0.7 – 1.2 ppm),” says Connett.

In this study, 512 children aged 8-13 years in two Chinese villages were studied and tested – Wamaio with an average of 2.47 mg/L water fluoride (range 0.57-4.50 mg/L) and Xinhuai averaging 0.36 mg/L (range 0.18-0.76 mg/L).

The authors eliminated both lead exposure and iodine deficiency as possible causes for the lowered IQs. They also excluded any children who had a history of brain disease or head injury and none drank brick tea, known to contain high fluoride levels. Neither village is exposed to fluoride pollution from burning coal or other industrial sources.

About 28% of the children in the low-fluoride area scored as bright, normal or higher intelligence compared to only 8% in the “high” fluoride area of Wamaio.

In the high-fluoride city, 15% had scores indicating mental retardation and only 6% in the low-fluoride city.

The study authors write: “In this study we found a significant dose-response relation between fluoride level in serum and children’s IQ.”

In addition to this study, and the 23 other IQ studies, there have been over 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage (all the IQ and animal brain studies are listed in Appendix 1 in The Case Against Fluoride available online at http://fluoridealert.org/caseagainstfluoride.appendices.html).

One of the earliest animal studies of fluoride’s impact on the brain was published in the U.S. This study by Mullenix et. al (1995) led to the firing of the lead author by the Forsyth Dental Center. “This sent a clear message to other researchers in the U.S. that it was not good for their careers to look into the health effects of fluoride – particularly on the brain,” says Connett.

Connett adds, “The result is that while the issue of fluoride’s impact on IQ is being aggressively pursued around the world, practically no work has been done in the U.S. or other fluoridating countries to repeat their findings. Sadly, health agencies in fluoridated countries seem to be more intent on protecting the fluoridation program than protecting children’s brains.”

When the National Research Council of the National Academies reviewed this topic in their 507-page report “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review of EPA’s Standards” published in 2006, only 5 of the 24 IQ studies were available in English. Even so the panel found the link between fluoride exposure and lowered IQ both consistent and “plausible.”

According to Tara Blank, Ph.D., the Science and Health Officer for the Fluoride Action Network, “This should be the study that finally ends water fluoridation. Millions of American children are being exposed unnecessarily to this neurotoxin on a daily basis. Who in their right minds would risk lowering their child’s intelligence in order to reduce a small amount of tooth decay, for which the evidence is very weak.” (see The Case Against Fluoride, Chelsea Green, October 2010)

Read Full Article Here

While the application of scientific knowledge creates technology, sometimes the technology is later redefined by science. Such is the case with terahertz (THz) radiation, the energy waves that drive the technology of the TSA: back scatter airport scanners.

Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently published an abstract with colleagues, “DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field” that reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that the THz waves generated by TSA scanners is significantly damaging the DNA of the people being directed through the machines, and the TSA workers that are in close proximity to the scanners throughout their workday.

From the abstracts own synopsis:

“We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.”

In layman’s terms what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.

Read Full Article Here

A remarkable study published in the Cochrane Libary found no evidence of benefit for influenza vaccinations and also noted that the vast majority of trials were inadequate.

The authors stated that the only ones showing benefit were industry-funded. They also pointed out that the industry-funded studies were more likely to be published in the most prestigious journals…and one more thing: They found cases of severe harm caused by the vaccines, in spite of inadequate reporting of adverse effects.

The study, “Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults”, is damning of the entire pharmaceutical industry and its minions, the drug testing industry and the medical system that relies on them.

In the usual manner of understatement, the authors concluded:

The results of this review seem to discourage the utilisation of vaccination against influenza in healthy adults as a routine public health measure. As healthy adults have a low risk of complications due to respiratory disease, the use of the vaccine may be only advised as an individual protection measure against symptoms in specific cases.

Five Myths to Keep in Mind About Flu Vaccines

Myth 1: The Flu Shot is very effective.
Statistically, you are less likely to get the flu if you haven’t had a flu vaccine. A BCTV reporter in Vancouver, commenting on the overload in BC emergency rooms, said that out of 32 people who had received a flu shot, 30 got the flu.

Myth 2: The Flu Shot has a high success rate.
This is a vaccine that only has a 6.25% success rate. This is a pretty big under-achievement, considering that the average reaction to placebo injections of distilled water is 30%.

Myth 3: The Flu Shot is safe.
Hugh Fudenberg MD, who is the world’s leading immunogeneticist, says that if a person had 5 flu vaccinations between 1970 and 1980 he/she is 10 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s Disease than if he/she had only one or two shots. Fudenberg said that this was because of the aluminum and mercury, which almost every flu vaccine contains. The gradual accumulation of aluminum and mercury in the brain leads to cognitive dysfunction.

Myth 4: There are no harmful ingredients in vaccinations.
Flu vaccines consist primarily of 3 categories of ingredients. First there are viruses and cultured bacteria. The second ingredient is the way in which they can be cultivated. This includes aborted human fetal cells, chick embryos, pig blood, monkey kidney tissue, cowpox pus, and calf serum, and all of these foreign proteins get injected straight into your bloodstream. A bit repulsive just thinking about it, isn’t it? The flu shot also contains neutralizers, stabilizers, carrying agents and preservatives such as mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is something that is used for embalming the dead and is known to cause cancer. There is no amount of formaldehyde considered safe when injected into a living organism.

Myth 5: The Flu Shot works.
The flu shot could actually weaken your immune system and make you more likely to catch this virus. It is has absolutely no value and should probably be avoided for your own safety. Not only is it loaded with toxic chemicals, but many people actually get the flu shortly after getting the shot, because it weakens their immune system instead of making it stronger like it is claimed to do.

Read the Full Article Here

By AP

(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong has confirmed its first case of human bird flu in seven years.

Health Secretary York Chow said late Wednesday that a 59-year-old woman had tested positive for H5N1 bird flu after returning to Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland, and is in serious condition in a local hospital.

With the announcement, the government raised the bird flu alert to “serious,” meaning there is a risk of contracting the disease within the territory.

Chow said Hong Kong officials were meeting Thursday and would determine whether additional measures are needed to safeguard local residents.

The bird flu virus first struck Hong Kong in 1997. Six people died in that outbreak and all chickens in the territory were culled.

read full article here

Posted By Dr. Mercola

A new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association finds once again that, contrary to what most people have been told, fluoride is actually bad for teeth.

Exposure to high levels of fluoride results in a condition known as fluorosis, in which tooth enamel becomes discolored. The condition can eventually lead to badly damaged teeth. The new study found that fluoride intake during a child’s first few years of life is significantly associated with fluorosis, and warned against using fluoridated water in infant formula.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is of a similar opinion. According to their website:

“Recent evidence suggests that mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis may increase the chance of a child developing … enamel fluorosis.”

Dr. Mercola’s comments:

It was 2007 when the American Dental Association (ADA) first warned that parents of infants younger than a year old “should consider using water that has no or low levels of fluoride” when mixing baby formula, due to concerns about fluorosis.

Now the Journal of the American Dental Association has published a study that found increased fluorosis risk among infants who were fed infant formula reconstituted with fluoride-containing water, as well as used fluoridated toothpastes.

The authors noted:

“Results suggest that prevalence of mild dental fluorosis could be reduced by avoiding ingestion of large quantities of fluoride from reconstituted powdered concentrate infant formula and fluoridated dentifrice.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also followed suit, warning on their Community Water Fluoridation page that mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis may increase the chance of a child developing enamel fluorosis.

They also state:

“In children younger than 8 years of age, combined fluoride exposure from all sources—water, food, toothpaste, mouth rinse, or other products—contributes to enamel fluorosis.”

This is as far as the CDC warnings go, however, and they continue to state that water fluoridation is safe — and dental fluorosis is only a “cosmetic” problem. In reality, neither of these assertions is true.

Why it is dangerous to swallow Flouride:

The United States is one of only eight countries in the entire developed world that fluoridates more than 50 percent of its water supply. It is added under the guise that it helps prevent and control tooth decay …

This is in spite of the fact that there never been any demonstrated difference in tooth decay between countries with fluoridated and non-fluoridated water, and no difference between states that have a high- or low percentage of their water fluoridated.

Even promoters of fluoridation concede that the major benefits are topical; fluoride works from the outside of the tooth, not from inside of your body, so why swallow it?

The fluoride added to your drinking water is in fact a chemical waste product! It is NOT something you should use as a supplement to your diet.

There are plenty of studies showing the dangers of fluoride to your health, such as:

•Increases lead absorption
•Disrupts synthesis of collagen
•Hyperactivity and/or lethargy
•Muscle disorders
•Brain damage, and lowered IQ
•Arthritis
•Dementia
•Bone fractures
•Lowers thyroid function
•Bone cancer (osteosarcoma)
•Inactivates 62 enzymes
•Inhibits formation of antibodies
•Genetic damage and cell death
•Increases tumor and cancer rate
•Disrupts immune system
•Damages sperm and increases infertility
As far as tooth decay is concerned, this is not caused by lack of fluoride.

Tooth decay is caused by acids in your mouth, typically created from sugar being metabolized by bacteria (Streptococcus mutans), and as you may already know, the number one source of calories in the United States is high fructose corn syrup.

The acid produced then attacks your enamel. Eventually the bacteria can get into the dentine, at which point tooth decay sets in. So there are far better options for decreasing tooth decay than using a topical or ingested poison, with a chief one being minimizing your intake of sugary foods and eating a healthful diet.

You typically don’t find dental cavities in more primitive societies that do not consume vast amounts of sugar like in the United States.

read the full article here

The more bisphenol A men were exposed to–at work or through the environment–the worse off their sperm were, according a new study that finds the link in humans; Levels of BPA way below those currently tolerated by government agencies seem to have negative effects on the viability of sperm.

By Katherine Harmon, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

The common industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to many ills, including reproductive abnormalities, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Much of the evidence for these associations, however, has been drawn from animal or in vitro research and has been somewhat controversial as to its precise implications for human health.

Now, a human study has found strong links between BPA levels and semen quality—and the findings are not looking good, especially for men frequently exposed to the compound on the job.

Researchers studied the urine (where BPA can be measured) and semen of 218 male factory workers in China, some of whom make BPA or put it into other products (such as plastics and epoxy resins that line cans), and the remainder, whose work did not put them in direct contact with the chemical.

Compared with the control group, the men who worked in the BPA-based factories had more than four times the chance of having lowered sperm counts and more than double the risk of having lower sperm motility (swimming ability). The results of the analysis, which controlled for potentially confounding factors (including age, heavy metal and other chemical exposures, chronic disease, smoking, alcohol use, sexual history, etcetera), were published online October 28 in Fertility and Sterility in a study led by De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

read the full article here