Room for One More? World Population to Reach 7 BILLION in Next Few Days

© Getty Images
Crowded: The world's population looks set to
smash through the seven billion barrier in the
next few days - and it is most likely the baby
will be born in the Asia-Pacific region,
such as Mumbai, India, pictured here

Room for One More? World Population to Reach 7 BILLION in Next Few Days

The world's population looks set to smash through the seven billion barrier in the next few days, according to the United Nations.

It comes just 12 years since the total reached six billion - with official estimates saying the figure will top eight billion in 2025 and 10 billion before the end of the century.

And it is most likely the baby will be born in the Asia-Pacific region - where the population growth rate is higher than anywhere else in the world.

Experts say the pace of growth - which has seen the number of people on the planet triple since 1940 - poses an increasing danger to citizens.

With more people to feed, house and provide medical care for, they say the world's resources look set to come under more strain than ever before.

As populations stabilise in the industrial world, almost all growth in the near future is expected to take place in developing countries.

Of the 2.3 billion people the UN believes will be added by 2050, more than one billion will live in sub-Saharan Africa. The Indian subcontinent will add some 630 million people.

It will mean less land and water available for each person. Poorer people, who tend to depend more on natural resources, will bear the brunt as they will not be able to compete with the rich.

The major issues will be how to feed the new arrivals, which will see the need for new varieties of improved crops.

© United Nations

Ageing populations are also set to pose a problem with some industrial countries, such as Japan, nearly doubling its share of the population aged 65 and over in the past 20 years.

This will put increased pressure on pension and healthcare systems.

The report states: 'Another two billion people may be added to the world population by mid-century, many of them in places where hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation are already taking a high toll.

'Supporting the world's human population will mean eliminating poverty, transitioning to an economy that is in sync with the earth, and securing every person's health, education, and reproductive choice.

'If we do not voluntarily stabilize population, we risk a much less humane end to growth as the ongoing destruction of the earth's natural systems catches up with us.'

© United Nations

But despite the problems the world is facing, Under-Secretary-General of the UN Dr Noeleen Heyzer said the seventh billion child of the world has a better chance than decade ago of surviving past the age of five than a decade ago.

The life expectancy for both women and men has also increased in every Asian and Pacific country during the past decade, Dr Heyzer added.

And although the pace of development is 1.1 per cent in 2011 - meaning an extra 78 million people will live on the planet by the end of this year - it has slowed down slightly from its peak of 2 per cent in 1968.

Professor David Bloom, from the department of economics and demographics at Harvard University, said in a report earlier this year that the issues would also affect developed countries.

He said: 'Population trends indicate a shift in the 'demographic centre of gravity' from more to less developed regions.

'Already strained, many developing countries will likely face tremendous difficulties in supplying food, water, housing, and energy to their growing populations, with repercussions for health, security, and economic growth.

'The demographic picture is indeed complex, and poses some formidable challenges.

'Those challenges are not insurmountable, but we cannot deal with them by sticking our heads in the sand.

'We have to tackle some tough issues ranging from the unmet need for contraception among hundreds of millions of women and the huge knowledge-action gaps we see in the area of child survival, to the reform of retirement policy and the development of global immigration policy.

'It's just plain irresponsible to sit by idly while humankind experiences full force the perils of demographic change.'

Britain is mirroring the world's expansion. In 1801, its population was 10.5 million - and is now close to 62.5 million.

Alan Watts - Life Is a Dance of Pattern

Alan Watts - Life Is a Dance of Pattern



Please visit Alan's website

Alan Watts ☮ The Way of Waking Up

Alan Watts ☮ The Way of Waking Up

Surprise! FDA allowed oil-tainted seafood onto market

© http://antiupnow.blogspot.com

Surprise! FDA allowed oil-tainted seafood onto market by Stephen C. Webster

A peer-reviewed study released this week has concluded that the government's safety testing methodologies for Gulf of Mexico seafood were insufficient to prevent oil-tainted animals from being sold in U.S. supermarkets.

Produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspective, the study concludes that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used outdated risk assessment techniques when evaluating the safety of gulf seafood in the wake of the worst accidental oil spill in human history.

Ultimately, the FDA was responsible for allowing food with "10,000 times too much contamination" than should be permitted, the study's authors said, failing to highlight the elevated risk to children and pregnant women.

The results of the NRDC's study are in line with a Raw Story investigation published late last year, which cited independent chemists and toxicologists states apart whose tests had concluded that tainted seafood was headed to the U.S. market.

"The sensory test employed by the FDA detects compounds that are volatile that have an odor; we're detecting compounds that are low volatility and are very low odor," Dr. William Sawyer, a toxicologist, told Raw Story in November 2010. "We found not only petroleum in the digestive tracts [of shrimp], but also in the edible portions of fish. We've collected shrimp, oysters and finned fish on their way to marketplace - we tested a good number of seafood samples and in 100 percent we found petroleum."

Experts who spoke to Raw Story cited excessive amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which can trigger an elevated cancer risk. Heightened PAH levels are precisely what the NRDC found as well. The group has since launched a petition (PDF) calling on the FDA to recognize the risk posed by elevated PAH levels, and to regulate them in-turn.

NRDC's study concluded that "FDA risk assessment methods should be updated to better reflect current risk assessment practices and to protect vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and children."

"Our findings add to a long list of evidence that FDA is overlooking the risks from chemical contaminants in food," study co-author Miriam Rotkin-Ellman said in a media advisory. "We must not wait for people to get sick or cancer rates to rise, we need FDA to act now to protect the food supply."

The FDA, which had not responded to a request for comment on this story at time of publication, continues to insist that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to consume.

---
Related:  The Mysterious Deaths of Nine Gulf Oil Spill Whistleblowers




Most Unreported Part Of Gulf Oil Spill

Grocery stores give food discounts to customers who agree to receive flu shot vaccines

Grocery stores give food discounts to customers who agree to receive flu shot vaccines by Christina Luisa

(NaturalNews) Have you read the NaturalNews report just published about Walgreens customers feeling verbally harassed by Walgreens employees at the checkout counter over flu shots? Multiple accounts from NaturalNews readers have continued to describe aggressive verbal harassment by Walgreens employees who appear to be "over the top" in pushing flu shots (even onto pregnant women!)

Read more here: http://www.naturalnews.com/033859_f...

More quotes from some of our exasperated Facebook fans: "I was just in Walgreens or CVS recently, buying batteries no less, when the cashier tried to talk me into having my flu shot. When I refused, I was greeted with a huge eye roll. I guess I didn't help her quota."

"At the Walgreens by my work they harass you RIGHT at the front door asking if you've had yours yet. GET OFF MY BACK!!"

The oppressive promotion of a fraud

Walgreens, CVS and other pharmacies all over have been "harassing customers" with their vaccine push. But that's just the beginning.

Other food retail companies with pharmacies such as Randalls, Safeway, Winn Dixie, and the huge retail food chain Kroger have been offering customers incentives and rewards for agreeing to receive flu shots.

Last month customers who got a flu shot at Winn-Dixie stores using their reward card saved $5 on the vaccine and also were given free merchandise including apples, juice, facial tissues and disinfecting wipes. Both Safeway and Randall's stores are giving their customers vouchers for 10 percent off their grocery purchases if they get their flu shot in their pharmacies.

This from Safeway's website: "And, if you get your flu shot at Safeway, you'll get an award for 10 percent off your next grocery purchase. Since you're already there picking up groceries, why not save yourself a trip and get yourself a professionally-administered flu shot, in a hygienic and friendly environment. Take care of yourself AND save money on groceries too!"

That's right, folks -- why not save money on groceries AND get yourself injected with a poison that causes convulsions and diseases like Guillain-Barre Syndrome and protects you from nothing, all in the same trip!

"Stay well and save," Safeway writes in promotional materials. Referring to staying well through the injection of a flu shot is absurd and completely false. Flu shots are not only ineffective but dangerous and a huge fraud to begin with. Read more in my article (here.)

And as for the attraction of saving 10 percent on groceries for getting injected with poison, customers certainly won't be told by these greedy corporate chains that the real purpose of these so-called savings is the tremendous extra profit vaccines bring in -- plus, their employees may even take home an IPad or other bonus as a result of meeting the vaccine quota that's been forced on them!

At least one Walgreens has been reported to be rewarding its employees with iPads if they meet a quota "goal" of pushing vaccines onto customers. In fact, several readers who say they are Walgreens employees have also reported to NaturalNews -- and requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs -- that they were being rewarded with incentives if they met a predetermined "goal" of pushing a certain number of customers into getting flu shots. They were also threatened with reprimands if they fail to meet this goal.

Read more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033859_f...

This was the experience of a Walgreens customer recently: "I stopped at my local Walgreens last night and after the cashier rang me up she asked if I was interested in getting a flu shot tonight. It was 10:30 pm. I was taken aback and actually laughed while I said no thanks. Then I asked how that even works if she does them and she said that they just send people to the pharmacy. I used to work at a Walgreens so I know how they do suggestive promotions and use incentives for having [employees] sell the most [of a certain product] and I thought it was such an odd promotion to be pushing on customers."

Last year the Walgreens marketing team introduced a $29.99 flu shot gift card just in time for the coming fall flu scare. After all, what gift says "I love you" better than a poke in the arm and the possibility of neurological damage or seizures?

What's in it for them?

Keep in mind that Walgreens is the nation's largest pharmacy by number of stores. A couple of years ago when the great swine flu scare started to spread unwarranted panic, seasonal flu shots alone added more than a 2.4 percent increase to same-store Walgreens sales. Forty percent of flu-shot patients were new to Walgreens stores that same year -- so clearly, all of the outrageous promotional flu shot is successfully making these Big Pharma lackeys some extra cash.

In fact, about 30 percent of a vaccine's price is pure profit, meaning that Walgreens profits roughly $10 from every single vaccine sold.

These companies are clearly not as concerned about the health of their customers as they pretend to be -- they're so aggressive at pushing flu shots because it makes them a ton of money. As I mentioned in my first article on this topic (read it here), the business of selling flu shots is extremely profitable. This will especially be the case when the CDC and the WHO conspire with Big Pharma to scare up another phony story about some deadly new pandemic that they claim is going to kill us all.

One anonymous blog post said: "It's not just Walgreens, it's everywhere. I've never seen the flu shot pushed like this year, plus it started months ago. I guess at $29 a hit the profits add up fast. The only two times in my life I got the flu was when I got the flu shot."

Employers push flu shots to earn financial kickbacks

NaturalNews has also learned that many employers receive kickbacks from vaccine retailers for "recruiting" their employees for flu shots.

One employee at a car dealership claims his employer received a $5 kickback for every employee who agreed to take a flu shot:

"Eventually I was confronted by the Assistant Manager of our department as to why I never participated [in getting a flu shot]. I explained to him that I don't do flu vaccines due to health reasons. He got very offensive and pushy about making me do it. [Apparently] it was the General Manager that sent him in to ask me why because he noted that I never participated. It turns out that the dealership got a $5 kickback for every employee that participated."

Makes you wonder exactly how much Walgreens and all these other corporations are making on us, doesn't it? I'll give you a hint -- it's more than a pretty penny.

Let's not forget who REALLY profits from this excessive flu shot promotion

Walgreen says it administered 7.5 million H1N1 and seasonal flu shots in 2009, up from 1.2 million the year before. Walgreen's figures represent about HALF of all the retailer-administered flu shots.

This was the same year the World Health Organization teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and governments around the world to scheme up a global health pandemic called swine flu. The public was thrown into a panic over the possibility of hundreds of thousands of deaths and worldwide catastrophe while those advising the WHO and CDC laughed all the way to the bank.

Those same advisers received huge kickbacks from the H1N1 vaccine manufacturers. Big Pharma, who raked in billions of government-sponsored endowment, rewarded the CDC and WHO handsomely. We covered a story on this last year: http://www.naturalnews.com/028936_W...

Enough is enough

My point in bringing this to your attention again: Vaccines have always been nothing but a big fat hoax. These deadly poisons that are so forcefully being peddled by money-hungry corporations are founded on complete fraud.

Don't buy into all the hype. Flu vaccines contain highly dangerous and toxic agents and DNA fragments that cause neurological disorders, kill children and contain live measles viruses. Read more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033447_I...

They supposedly "protect" you from last year's flu but are really strictly Big Pharma hocus-pocus aimed at taking your money -- either directly from your pocket or through your government -- and keeping you sick so they get your repeated business.

If you want to protect yourself from colds and flu, the best thing you can do is take good quality Vitamin D supplements: http://www.naturalnews.com/029760_v...

Vaccines are consistently sold as "science." But they aren't science -- they're just for-profit propaganda. People are sick and tired of this propaganda being forcefully pushed on them, and that's why we just launched our public complaint campaign called Stop the Walgreens Flu Shot Harassment!

Read more here: http://www.naturalnews.com/033859_f...

We're urging everyone to stop spending their hard-earned money at retail establishments like Walgreens, CVS and Safeway that promote vaccines and push them on customers.

We need your help in this. Boycott Walgreens and CVS. Boycott the Safeway stores with pharmacies inside. Boycott the Wal-Marts. Boycott the Winn Dixies and Randalls. Send a message through your lack of purchases at these places that you will not contribute to the economical enrichment of the corporations engaged in selling dangerous and fraudulent products that kill little children.

Also, please share this story with friends, loved ones, neighbors and others so they, too, can join in filing complaints against Walgreens and CVS pharmacies about the way they aggressively push flu shots onto customers. At the very least, boycott these stores altogether and shop somewhere where you won't have to worry about being bombarded with pressure to be vaccinated.

Read more:
http://supermarketnews.com/news/saf...

http://www.cafemom.com/group/4388/f...

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/09/2...

http://supermarketnews.com/news/flu...

http://www.dailylead.com/news/fmi/s...

http://www.naturalnews.com/033859_f...

http://community.safeway.com/t5/Our...

http://lonestarwatchdog.blogspot.co...

The Week of Walking Backwards

The Week of Walking Backwards by Leo Gerard

As the Occupy Wall Street movement spread across the nation last week, politicians in D.C. flipped the bird at protesters – including those camping in Washington’s McPherson Square.

Here’s how: While occupiers sought political focus on the unemployment, impoverishment and foreclosures suffered by the nation’s non-rich 99 percent, politicians considered three major pieces of legislation and passed only the one that will help the wealthiest 1 percent and hurt the remaining 99 percent.

Senate Republicans murdered-by-filibuster the American Jobs Act, which would surtax the 1 percent to provide jobs for the 99 percent. The Senate did pass the currency manipulation bill, but House GOP leaders refused to schedule a vote on the measure that would protect jobs for the 99 percent by punishing countries that undervalue their currencies to artificially lower prices on their exports.

By contrast, both houses of Congress adopted the so-called Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Colombia and Korea, which will, just like their predecessor NAFTA, destroy jobs held by the 99 percent.

It’s incredible. Inexplicable. Inexcusable. In a country where joblessness is a painful 9.1 percent. Where one in five children lives in poverty. Where foreclosures rose again last month. Where a whole movement is growing to protest the appeasement of the rich at the cost of the middle class. In that place, Congress chose to walk backwards. It didn’t take two steps forward – which it could have by passing the currency bill and jobs act. No. It just took a giant step backward by embracing job-killing trade agreements.

It all forces the 99 percent to demand even more loudly: Where’s the jobs?

WHERE’S THE JOBS?

Complete article..

Mass genocide of Mohawk children by UK Queen and Vatican uncovered in Canada

© ITCCS.ORG
Unearthing mass aboriginal graves at
the Mohawk Institute, Canada

October 8, 2011: Mass genocide of Mohawk children by UK Queen and Vatican uncovered in Canada by Alfred Lambremont Webre

Brantford, ON, Canada - Mass graves of Mohawk children have been uncovered by ground-penetrating radar at the Mohawk Institute, a residential school for Mohawk operated by the Church of England and the Vatican before its closure in 1970.

According to Rev. Kevin Annett, Secretary of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (itccs.org), the Mohawk Institute was "set up by the Anglican Church of England in 1832 to imprison and destroy generations of Mohawk children. This very first Indian [First Nations] residential school in Canada lasted until 1970, and, like in most residential schools, more than half of the children imprisoned there never returned. Many of them are buried all around the school."

Preliminary scanning by ground penetrating radar adjacent to the now closed main building Mohawk Institute has revealed that "between 15-20 feet of soil" was brought in and put over the mass graves just before the Mohawk Institute closed in 1970 in order to camouflage the mass graves of Mohawk Children and avoid prosecution for genocide and crimes against humanity under the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, and cooperating national courts.

International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) is expected to commence judicial proceedings starting in late October 2011 in Brussels, Belgium and Dublin, Ireland for child genocide crimes against humanity against defendants Elizabeth Windsor, head of state of Canada and head of the Church of England and Pope Joseph Ratzinger, both of whom knowingly participated in the planning and coverup of the child genocide, according to forensic evidence.

The Tribunal sessions were originally to have been held in London, U.K. However, The U.K. government has denied entrance to the Secretary and major jurists and staff of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) without cause.

The discovery of the mass graves of Mohawk children, uncovered by ground-penetrating radar at the Mohawk Institute comes on the heels of videotaped evidence by eyewitness William Coombes, who in Oct. 1964 witnessed Elizabeth Windsor, as Head of State of Canada and Head of the Church of England, visit an aboriginal school in Kamloops, British Columbia, choose 10 young aboriginal children, made them kiss her feet, and allegedly took them from the school for a picnic at a lake.

The 10 aboriginal children were never seen again. Mr. Coombes, who was to give evidence at the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) of Elizabeth Windsor's child genocide, was murdered in Feb. 2011. Fortunately, Mr. Coombes' testimony was videotaped before his death and is available for the Tribunal.

Rev. Kevin Annett states that instruments of torture such as a rack for torturing the Mohawk children in ritual torture have been found at the now closed Mohawk Institute. Eyewitnesses from the Mohawk community have stated they witnessed priests in red robes torturing children in ritual torture.

Rev. Annett made these revelations in an exclusive Oct. 7, 2011 interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre. In the interview, Rev. Annett acknowledges the close parallels between the Oct. 1964 personal child genocide and possible ritual killings of 10 aboriginal children by Elizabeth Windsor, Head of State of Canada and Head of the Church of England, and the child genocides occurring during the same period at the Mohawk Institute.

These parallels suggest that Elizabeth Windsor, as Head of State and Head of the Church of England was personally aware of, ordered, and participated in this systematic program of genocide and ritual torture and killings at Church of England residential schools operated by the Church of England and the Vatican.

In his interview, Rev. Annett stated that the mainstream Canadian media, as well as the government of Canada, are maintaining a coverup and media blackout of the discoveries of Mohawk child genocide at the Mohawk Institute.

Listen to interview with Rev. Kevin Annett

Readers can listen to Alfred Lambremont Webre's interview of Rev. Kevin Annett in the article above or at the following URL.

International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and State

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Win Battle Against Bloomberg Eviction, At Least 10 Arrested in Clash With Police

Live Blog: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Win Battle Against Bloomberg Eviction, At Least 10 Arrested in Clash With Police

The brave protesters stationed at Zuccotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza, have inspired people across the nation and the world to take a stand against Wall St. excesses and demand a more equitable economic and political system for the 99%, not just the 1%. They faced forced eviction today, under the premise that the park needs to undergo cleaning. Representatives of Brookfield, the company that owns the park, sent a letter to police commissioner Ray Kelly asking the NYPD to remove the protesters, but the protesters promised to stay put. Early this morning, the city's Deputy Mayor announced that today's cleanup of Liberty Plaza has been postponed. A victory! After hearing the news, protesters marched through lower Manhattan, where at least 10 were arrested.

AlterNet is reporting from the scene. Here are our live updates from the past several hours. Scroll down to see our tweets from last night through today.

Update 12: Astounding video of the protesters learning about the postponement early this morning, via ThinkProgress:

Update 11: NBC ups the arrest count to "at least 10." NYCLU reports it saw protesters being punched. If you witnessed police misconduct, email protest@nyclu.org.

Update 10: We're hearing that things are now calm for the most part at Liberty Plaza, though there's still a heavy (and growing?) police presence.

Update 9: Tweets Jonathan Lemire of the Daily News, ".@MikeBloomberg says Brookfield may still go ahead with cleaning in a couple days. Says would be harder for NYPD to help."

Update 8: According to BreakingNews, 6-7 protesters have been arrested in a "heavy clash" with the police.

Update 7: A photo emerges of one person being arrested. We're hearing reports of white-shirt cops and riot police with netting. Some have batons out.

Update 6: Kristen Gwynne says the marchers are heading back to Liberty Plaza now, chanting "We are the 99%." Meanwhile, the NYCLU tweets that some marchers are heading to South Street Seaport, and that there are paddy wagons on the scene.

Update 5: Riot police are reportedly barricading the gates of City Hall.

Update 4: We're hearing a report of "chaos," from the NYCLU: "Really bad scene at bowling green now, cops running, #ows being thrown to ground, chaos ensues." Stay safe, everyone. More: "Lots of zip ties headed towards broad st. From beaver st." And our Kristen Gwynne reports that there are police in riot gear at Broadway and Murray.

Update 3: Now the crowd is gearing up for a peaceful march on Wall Street, which is reportedly heading north on Broadway right now.

Update 2: The crowd is energized, and is continuing to clean. Tweets Citizen Radio's Allison Kilkenny, "It's just a big party at Liberty Park right now. Many in disbelief. Hundreds were ready to go to jail."

Update 1: The Deputy Mayor announced that this morning's cleanup of Liberty Plaza has been postponed. A victory! Watch an amazing video of the announcement being made via the People's Mic right here above.

Blog info..

Occupy Wall Street: People Power vs. the Police State

© alternet.org

Occupy Wall Street: People Power vs. the Police State by Nick Turse

The NYPD has erected a ring of steel around Liberty Plaza, but Occupy Wall Street vows to resist. 

October 13, 2011: The more, the merrier,” was how the white-shirted police inspector put it as he stood on the periphery of Liberty Plaza while activist and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello played for Occupy Wall Street protesters on Thursday afternoon.

“More” was the operative word. While the NYPD commander was glad-handing a elderly protester who was asking about his thoughts on all the people in the jam-packed park, it could have been a commentary on his department’s presence. The periphery of Liberty Plaza, formally known as Zuccotti Park, resembles an armed camp with surveillance equipment, police vehicles, armed officers, and metal barricades ringing a city square filled with unarmed activists, who openly advocate non-violence. The response is as disproportionate as it is superfluous, a point driven home by the utter apathy displayed by many of the security forces on the scene…today. Tomorrow, the occupiers face the real possibility that the overwhelming police presence will spring to life in order to evict them, end the four-week people’s occupation and snuff out the new society they’re building.

Read complete article..

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More Proof for Diabetes, Pesticide Link

© presstv.com

More Proof for Diabetes, Pesticide Link

New findings have put more weight behind the evidences suggesting that high exposure to certain pesticides increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Another study has drawn a link between high levels of pesticides in blood tests and increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Researchers of Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare team measured blood levels of several persistent organic pollutants in about 2,000 older adults, Reuters reported.

The results showed that 15 participants with high blood levels of organochlorine pesticides were suffering from type 2 diabetes.

In addition, the more the level of the toxic chemicals increased in an individual's blood stream, the greater became the risk of diabetes.

More information..

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Autism and Vitamin D

© Psychology Today

Autism and Vitamin D by Emily Deans, M.D.

The sun is not the enemy

In recent years we have been told to avoid the sun. Anyone reading women's magazines, in fact, will have been advised to put on sunscreen on face and hands "just in case" as those few moments walking from the car to the workplace or grocery store might be enough to cause aging and cancer cells to go nuts in our vulnerable skin.

We slather on sunscreen and sunblock, which for the most part completely blocks the UVB sun rays that increase our cancer protective vitamin D and allows in some cancer causing UVA - to me that sounds like a silly thing to do!

Why not get enough sun to get a little color, obtain a healthy amount of the essential vitamin D and then cover up to avoid sunburn and further problems? It is certainly what our ancestors, absent suncreen, must have done for hundreds of thousands of years.

Vitamin D is minimal in the diet (fortified dairy products and cod liver oil provide a small amount), and we have historically obtained 90% or so of our vitamin D through our skin. In fact, someone with fair skin in the midday hours of the summertime can make up to 12,000 IU vitamin D within 20 minutes or so with arms and legs exposed. A more typical amount in someone with an adequate blood level of vitamin D would be 4,000 IU - a cup of milk has 300 IU. So you can see you have to drink an awful lot of milk to make up for sun avoidance.

In recent decades, near-complete sun-avoidance is what we've been told to do (particularly in the midday, which is when we make the most vitamin D.) Health-conscious folks blocked those dangerous rays from our vulnerable hides and definitely protected the soft skin of our most precious children. But could that increased vigilance have a terrible cost? Could a lack of sunshine and suboptimal amounts of vitamin D be a possible cause of autism spectrum disease in our children?

Vitamin D researcher Dr. John Cannell has spent a great deal of time covering this topic, so I don't need to reinvent the wheel here. I'll note the highlights and link his articles for the full discussion. He began with an article in 2007, followed by a comprehensive update in 2010. (My thanks to fellow blogger Jamie Scott for pointing me to these articles originally.)

Cannell's 2007 article

Update, August 2010

Dr. Cannell's major points (he has several more, but I'll note the more compelling ones):

1. Autism is increasing, as is vitamin D deficiency, and the autism epidemic came upon us at the same time the major health authorities advised us to eschew the sun.
2. Vitamin D is likely central to brain development as a key helper in neural development and neuroprotection. In addition, autism is likely mediated by inflammation, and vitamin D is a key player in anti-inflammatory processes. Also, vitamin D enables glutathione, the "master antioxidant," clear our system of free radicals, and glutathione also acts as a chelating agent to bind toxic heavy metals such as mercury, which kids with autism have a tough time clearing from their systems.
3. Williams syndrome, a chromosomal disease which (among other things) results in abnormally high levels of circulating active vitamin D in early childhood, results in kids who are especially social and over friendly - rather the opposite of autism symptoms.
4. During pregnancy, boys' brains are bathed in testosterone, and girls' brains in estrogen. Estrogen is known to have many vitamin D enhancing properties. This could account for the 4:1 ratio of boys to girls suffering from autism.
5. Studies show autism births occur most often in March, at the end of winter, when vitamin D levels would be lowest.
6. African Americans seem to suffer from a higher rate of autism, and they also have a higher rate of vitamin D deficiency than people with lighter skin. In Europe, the children of darker-skinned immigrants have higher rates of autism also.
7. Rickets, due to vitamin D deficiency, is characterized by hypotonia (poor muscle tone) and developmental delay, as is autism.
8. Autism seems to be higher among the kids of highly educated women, and they are more likely to follow guidelines for sun restriction for themselves and their children.

All told, it makes for a compelling theory, and Dr. Cannell has a point in that "this theory deserves immediate attempts to disprove it." My only major issues with it are that rickets is not autism, and that there may not be a new autism epidemic after all, but we are only now recognizing how prevalent the disorder actually has been all this time. But I could certainly be wrong about that second bit. And, by all means, let's please give pregnant women guidelines for sufficient vitamin D and get the kids to play outside! And let's study vitamin D and autism directly.

Dr. Cannell touches on this next part in his 2010 article - we have a lot to learn from history. If vitamin D deficiency is the cause of autism, then all of this has happened before. Rickets, characterized mostly by bone growth abnormalities in children, became endemic during the industrial revolution, when people in cities, especially, seemed to spend very little time outdoors, diets were poor, and many children died, as there was no cure. Eventually, cod liver oil and sunbathing were shown to prevent and improve the disease.

Here is Dr. Cannell's quote:

"If adequate amounts of vitamin D prevent autism, one would expect children with rickets to have an increased risk of autism. To my knowledge, the neuropsychiatric symptoms of rickets have not been studied in the modern era. However, at least two old papers have addressed it, both published before Kanner described autism in 1943. Both papers describe 'weak mindedness,''feeble minds,''mental dullness,' unresponsiveness and developmental delays. Even more intriguing, both papers report that the mental condition in rickets improved with vitamin D."

In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, first published in 1939, a writer named Laird had the following to say about the state of mental health at the time - keeping in mind this was published without a thought for political correctness, and certainly researchers or bloggers would phrase some things quite differently these days! (1):

The country's average level of general ability sinks lower with each generation. Should the ballot be restricted to citizens able to take care of themselves? One out of four cannot. . . . The tail is now wagging Washington, and Wall St. and LaSalle Street. . . . Each generation has seen some lowering of the American average level of general ability.

Although we might cite any one of nearly two dozen states, we will first mention Vermont by name because that is the place studied by the late Dr. Pearce Bailey. "It would be," he wrote, "safe to assume that there are at least 30 defectives per 1000 in Vermont of the eight-year-old mentality type, and 300 per 1000 of backward or retarded persons, persons of distinctly inferior intelligence. In other words, nearly one-third of the whole population of that state is of a type to require some supervision.

Dr. Weston Price summarized the thinking about medicine and disease at the time thusly:

The problem of lowered mentality and its place in our modern conception of bodily diseases has not been placed on a physical basis as have the better understood degenerative processes, with their direct relationship to a diseased organ, but has generally been assigned to a realm entirely outside the domain of disease or injury of a special organ or tissue. Edward Lee Thorndike, of Columbia University, says that "thinking is as biological as digestion." This implies that a disturbance in the capacity to think is directly related to a defect in the brain.

Of course back then they did not have the diagnostic categories or laboratory tests to differentiate between the varieties of autism, mental retardation (most commonly due to hypothyroidism), and cerebral palsy. But even Dr. Price complained that medicine was becoming too specialized, without an holistic view. And it is nice to see him recognize that mental illness is biologic, way back in the early part of the century. Pretty good considering that psychiatry is something of the red-headed stepchild of modern medicine even today.

It does make you wonder. This "mental degeneration" of that time period, in part, led to the rise of eugenics, and even Nazis. In the late 1800s, admissions to mental asylums skyrocketed. The mental health of the western world seemed to improve after World War II, when bread began to be fortified with B vitamins, and people recognized the importance of at least a small amount of vitamin D. But anxiety, depression, and "bodily degeneration" is on the rise again with our change to industrial processed food, and perhaps this change in nutrition and increase in sun avoidance has contributed to an increase in autism spectrum disorders as well.

In historical novels, a curative practice for what ails you is always to take some time visiting on the seashore. One would expect to get more sun then, and eat more nutrient-rich seafood, and be bathed in the magnesium-rich waters of the ocean. Sounds like an excellent curative course to me!

Don't get burned, but don't hate the sun - those midday rays (in moderation) are the best source of a healthy amount of vitamin D. Skin cancer is usually easy to catch early and have removed, whereas higher levels of vitamin D have been shown to be protective against may different kinds of much more common cancers that are generally more difficult to catch early - including colon, breast, and prostate cancer. Melanoma is the deadly exception to the relatively easily managed and removed rule of skin cancer - but melanoma often occurs in areas not exposed to the sun, and its incidence seems to be increasing the more we use sunblock. And, of course, melanoma is much rarer than colon or breast or prostate cancer.

The full impact of lack of sunshine on mental health in general is unknown, but I do suspect there is a connection. In the future I will publish articles about links between depression and schizophrenia and vitamin D levels. One final plug for sunshine, not just vitamin D supplementation - according to Dr. Michael Holick in The Vitamin D Solution, we make 5-10 additional photoproducts in our skin. It seems prudent to think that if our skin is spending time and energy making something, it will likely be a molecule we need. While these issues are not fully understood, I like to fall back to evolution as a sensible guide. Our species has exposed a lot of skin to the sun. We need to fully comprehend the risks and benefits (for total health, not just skin cancer) of hiding from it before we make general recommendations to never let skin go exposed.

About the author

Emily Deans, M.D., is a board certified adult psychiatrist practicing in Massachusetts. She graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 2000 and from the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency in 2004, and was a Chief Resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. She is currently a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical school.

Carbohydrates Trick Your Body into Stacking on Pounds - Fast

© guardian.co.uk

Carbohydrates Trick Your Body into Stacking on Pounds - Fast by Dr. Mercola

Why we get fat and what to do about it is an ongoing topic on Uprising Radio in interviews with researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute. In their latest studies, researchers looked at science and decades of obesity rates, and found that some old paradigms on the cause of weight gain could be off-track. They also learned that people wanting to lose weight may have more choices in how to go about it, than they thought.

"Overweight and obese people appear to really have options when choosing a weight-loss program, including a low-carb diet, even if it means eating more fat," says the studies' lead investigator, a professor of medicine and director of clinical and research exercise physiology, Kerry Stewart, Ed.D.

Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet Found to be Successful for Weight Loss

Conventional advice has focused on low-fat diets for weight loss and heart disease prevention, but again and again, researchers are now confirming that refined carbohydrates from sugars and grains is the primary culprit behind skyrocketing obesity rates, along with related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Historical data also clearly shows that when indigenous cultures abandon their traditional diets for a Western style diet high in sugar and flour, they inevitably begin to suffer these health problems, even though they have been virtually nonexistent in their culture before.

As discussed in the featured audio, you simply must address the carb issue in your diet in order to successfully manage your weight and improve your health...

Read complete article..

Vaccines and autism: a new scientific review

Vaccines and autism: a new scientific review by Sharyl Attkisson

For all those who've declared the autism-vaccine debate over - a new scientific review begs to differ. It considers a host of peer-reviewed, published theories that show possible connections between vaccines and autism.

The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes--A review. The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury preservative thimerosal; but all of them.

Ratajczak's article states, in part, that "Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis [brain damage] following vaccination [emphasis added]. Therefore, autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain."

The article goes on to discuss many potential vaccine-related culprits, including the increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of time. "What I have published is highly concentrated on hypersensitivity, Ratajczak told us in an interview, "the body's immune system being thrown out of balance."

University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Brian Strom, who has served on Institute of Medicine panels advising the government on vaccine safety says the prevailing medical opinion is that vaccines are scientifically linked to encephalopathy (brain damage), but not scientifically linked to autism. As for Ratajczak's review, he told us he doesn't find it remarkable. "This is a review of theories. Science is based on facts. To draw conclusions on effects of an exposure on people, you need data on people. The data on people do not support that there is a relationship. As such, any speculation about an explanation for a (non-existing) relationship is irrelevant."

Ratajczak also looks at a factor that hasn't been widely discussed: human DNA contained in vaccines. That's right, human DNA. Ratajczak reports that about the same time vaccine makers took most thimerosal out of most vaccines (with the exception of flu shots which still widely contain thimerosal), they began making some vaccines using human tissue. Ratajczak says human tissue is currently used in 23 vaccines. She discusses the increase in autism incidences corresponding with the introduction of human DNA to MMR vaccine, and suggests the two could be linked. Ratajczak also says an additional increased spike in autism occurred in 1995 when chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue.

Why could human DNA potentially cause brain damage? The way Ratajczak explained it to me: "Because it's human DNA and recipients are humans, there's homologous recombinaltion tiniker. That DNA is incorporated into the host DNA. Now it's changed, altered self and body kills it. Where is this most expressed? The neurons of the brain. Now you have body killing the brain cells and it's an ongoing inflammation. It doesn't stop, it continues through the life of that individual."

Dr. Strom said he was unaware that human DNA was contained in vaccines but told us, "It does not matter...Even if human DNA were then found in vaccines, it does not mean that they cause autism." Ratajczak agrees that nobody has proven DNA causes autism; but argues nobody has shown the opposite, and scientifically, the case is still open.

A number of independent scientists have said they've been subjected to orchestrated campaigns to discredit them when their research exposed vaccine safety issues, especially if it veered into the topic of autism. We asked Ratajczak how she came to research the controversial topic. She told us that for years while working in the pharmaceutical industry, she was restricted as to what she was allowed to publish. "I'm retired now," she told CBS News. "I can write what I want."

We wanted to see if the CDC wished to challenge Ratajczak's review, since many government officials and scientists have implied that theories linking vaccines to autism have been disproven, and Ratajczak states that research shows otherwise. CDC officials told us that "comprehensive review by CDC...would take quite a bit of time." In the meantime, CDC provided these links:

Interagency Autism Coordination Committee: http://iacc.hhs.gov

Overview of all CDC surveillance and epi work: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/research.html

CDC study on risk factors and causes: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/seed.html

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Shame on AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine

© Alliance for Natural Health

Shame on AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine - Alliance for Natural Health

Did you hear the breaking news last night - that multivitamins may shorten your life? Here's how junk science from the AMA set off the media frenzy.

Bloomberg phrased it this way:

"Multivitamins and some dietary supplements, used regularly by an estimated 234 million US adults, may do more harm than good, according to a study that tied their use to higher death rates among older women."

The study's authors outrageously concluded,

"We see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements."

---
Sott.net: Outrageous conclusion indeed! The statement that vitamins "may do more harm than good, according to a study that tied their use to higher death rates among older women" is ridiculous! According to the following article: 27 Years: No Deaths from Vitamins, 3 Million from Prescription Drugs it is clear that Big Pharma is the real killer and not dietary supplements!

Over the past 27 years the complete time frame that the data has been available there have been 0 deaths as a result of vitamins and over 3 million deaths related to prescription drug use.

---
The study, published in the American Medical Association's (AMA's) Archives of Internal Medicine, assessed the use of vitamin and mineral supplements in nearly 39,000 women whose average age was 62. The researchers asked the women to fill out three surveys, the first in 1986, the second in 1997, and the last in 2004, reporting what supplements they took and what foods they ate, and answering a few questions about their health.

That's right, all the data was self-reported by the study subjects only three times over the course of the 19-year-long study. To say the data is "unreliable" would be a generous description. This kind of "data" has no place in a valid scientific study.

Then the researchers looked at how many of the women had died by 2008. They reported that the number of deaths were somewhat higher for women who took copper, a little bit lower for women who took calcium, but about average for most of the women.

In the study, all of the relative risks were so low as to be statistically insignificant, and none was backed up by any medical investigation or biological plausibility study. No analysis was done on what combinations of vitamins and minerals were actually consumed, and no analysis of the cause of death was done beyond grouping for "cancer," "cardiovascular disease," or "other" - there was certainly no causative analysis done. The interactions of potential compounding risk factors is always tremendously complex - and was ignored in this so-called study.

"Multivitamin" can mean many different things, and of course changed tremendously over the 19 years during which this "study" was conducted. Were they high quality? Were the ingredients synthetic or natural? How much of each nutrient was taken? Were they really taken at all? How good is anyone's memory in describing what took place over many years? One would assume that that the women's diets fluctuated greatly over the same period; when self-reporting only three times in 19 years, there is a great deal of information one would naturally leave out even if some of it was accurate. No analysis was done of the effect of supplements on the women's overall health, nor of their effect on women of other ages.

According to Dr. Robert Verkerk the Executive & Scientific Director of ANH-International;

"This study is a classic example of scientific reductionism being used to fulfill a particular need. In this case, it's supplement bashing, a well-known preoccupation of Big Pharma - and an approach that appears to be central to the protection of Big Pharma's profit margins."

Read Dr. Verkerk's article critical of the AMA's goals and scientific methodology here.

In short, this study is less than useless: it is dangerous, because it is being used by the media and the mainstream medical establishment to blacken the eye of nutritional supplements using poor data, bad analysis, and specious conclusions - otherwise known as junk science.


Sott.net For a more in depth look at the issue of junk, or corrupt science read the following articles:

The Corruption of Science: Pressure for positive results puts science under threat, study shows
The Corruption of Science in America
Scientist criticizes corruption of medical industry

Occupy Wall Street Takes the Upper East Side

© Reuters.com

Occupy Wall Street Takes the Upper East Side by J.A. Myerson

Fifth Avenue at number 838 is a massive building, overlooking the southeast corner of Central Park. Blocks from the world-famous Plaza Hotel, the only people likely to pass by this block are extremely wealthy. See, New York is a de facto segregated city, by race, by income and by power status. No one who lives on this block or any of the blocks near it is poor, middle class, upper middle class, or even quite well off. The people who live on this block are all extremely rich.

Many of them acquire their wealth on a stock market that yields the biggest returns while people in other neighborhoods, perhaps in other cities or states or countries, suffer starvation and misery to generate profits for bosses. But this does not compel the tenants of 838 Fifth Avenue to change their building's façade, where the words from Mark 12:31 are engraved: "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF." Perhaps they mean "neighbor" in a very immediate sense. In any case, the irony was not lost on the people who stopped outside the building Tuesday and chanted those five words back to the imposing stone wall.

Roughly 500 protesters, their chants and signs mirroring those deployed by the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, took to the streets on Manhattan's Upper East Side, home to many of the finance and media plutocrats the movement seeks to hold to account for the ruination of America's economy and politics.

The group, diverse in ethnicity, age and organizational affiliation, chanting, indignant and demanding justice, must surely have looked strange to passersby, who are accustomed to encountering primarily visitors to the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along, of course, with the denizens of the buildings on these streets. Here, the "and so are you" rejoinder to the "we are the 99 percent chance" becomes obsolete.

The marchers were greeted along the way by friendly faces, in the figure of the building services personnel, doormen and construction workers in the private employ of the 1 percent, some nodding along with the groups' drumming, some raising fists in solidarity and one even shouting, "We love you!" from a second story window to marchers passing below.

The group stopped outside the apartment buildings of, among others, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch; oil tycoon David Koch; and Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co., which recently donated $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation (the New York Police Department lately having employed brutal tactics against Occupy Wall Street protesters), a move emblematic of the unsavory force the interests of extreme wealth exert on the functions of government that is the target of Occupy Wall Street's ire.

Increasingly, though, Wall Street is not the only anti-corporatist occupation of note. The Upper East Side march came a mere matter of hours after 100 protesters at Occupy Boston were arrested, having defied the Boston Police Department's orders to vacate their encampment. The Boston Police Department apparently misunderstands the concept of an "occupation," but no less than it understands the stimulative effect official backlash has on the protests.

It's difficult to imagine what "the revolution" would look like, if not for thousands of nonviolent protesters disrupting business as usual across more and more cities across the United States. No longer is "the movement" a massive anti-war march every few months, as it was in the early to mid 2000s or black block antagonists making noise in front of summits at is was in the late 1990s. Now, in 2011, it's nearly constant, unrelenting occupations, rallies, marches and agitation in the very places where the plutocrats work and live. And far from looking as though it's going to drop off, the phenomenon is growing.

The American ruling class would do well to consider the "No justice, no peace" threat as serious, because, for the first time in a long time, it is.

The March to Regulate Vitamins: Bogus Study Claims Vitamin E Increases Prostate Cancer

The March to Regulate Vitamins: Bogus Study Claims Vitamin E Increases Prostate Cancer

The growing threat of total control over our food is advanced through junk science. The latest is a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) piece that claims Vitamin E is linked to an increase in prostate cancer, even though the study’s flaw is blatant.

The JAMA article, titled “Vitamin E and the Risk of Prostate Cancer“, concludes:

Dietary supplementation with vitamin E significantly increased the risk of prostate cancer among healthy men.

The Study’s Flaw

The study’s conclusion would be a matter of great concern, if it had used real Vitamin E. But it didn’t. They used an artificial construct called all-rac-alpha-tocopherol acetate. There is only one natural form of Vitamin E, RRR-alpha-tocopherol. The three Rs refer to the positioning of three methyl cation groups (CH₃). The following images explain the distinction:

The CH₃ group is placed at several locations in the Vitamin E molecule. In natural Vitamin E, they are always positioned to the “right”, as shown above. However, in artificial Vitamin E, at least one of them, and sometimes all of them, will be positioned to the “left”, as shown below, (S stands for sinistra, the latin term for left.):

Many bodily functions are based on more than the elements that compose a molecule. A prime example is hormones, in which they are recognized only if they’re shaped right. Clearly, all-rac-alpha-tocopherol acetate shouldn’t even be labeledas Vitamin E. Therefore, synthetic Vitamin E is not a replacement for natural Vitamin E.

Therefore, the JAMA study is junk science, fit only to fill garbage bins.

Authors Cover Themselves

Interestingly, the authors of the study seem to be aware of their subterfuge. They’ve covered themselves in the conclusion:

Extended follow-up of SELECT participants shows that healthy men with average risk of prostate cancer subjected to contemporary community standards of screening and biopsy who took a common dose and formulation of vitamin E (400 IU/d) have a significantly increased risk of prostate cancer.

Notice the careful use of terms, referring to participants “who took a common dose and formulation of vitamin E”. No commentary suggested that not using natural Vitamin E would mean that their study is virtually meaningless—in spite of the fact that they obviously know it could make a difference.

Who Benefits from Such Junk Science?

Who benefits from such a study? It should come as no surprise that Big Pharma does. Big Pharma makes synthetic-fake vitamins, including synthetic-face Vitamin E. Here’s Merck’s chemical description of their Vitamin E.

The argument could be made that studies suggesting risks from vitamins work against Big Pharma, but that’s taking a narrow view of the situation. Getting vitamins off store shelves and into Conventional Medicine’s discretion leaves the field open to pharmaceutical corporations. That leaves them free sell their poisons in the same way that they sell their poison drugs—through doctors’ prescriptions and at enormously jacked-up prices. First, though, they need to convince people that there’s danger in natural vitamins, so they’ll be willing to accept draconian limits on access to them. (Note also that conventional medicine also benefits, by forcing people to pay doctors for access to products that had always been freely available.)

Funding for the study was provided by agencies neck-deep in Big Pharma money: the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (a division of the NIH). Of course, the study’s publisher, JAMA, is utterly dependent on Big Pharma money.

Because the trial did not use real Vitamin E, its results are meaningless. The news media promoting the study should be ashamed. They clearly demonstrate an utter lack of investigative reporting. This latest faked connection between a vitamin E and prostate cancer follows a string of such reports in the last few years*. All of them are junk science.

Sources:

• The Alpha-tocopherol Transfer Protein and Vitamin E Adequacy
• *Bogus Vitamin Studies
• Vitamins linked with higher death risk in older women
• Vitamin E linked to lung cancer
• Vitamin E linked to increased risk of some strokes
• High dose vitamin E death warning

Vaccine Induced Inflammation Linked to Type 2 Diabetes Epidemic

Vaccine Induced Inflammation Linked to Type 2 Diabetes Epidemic by Anthony Gucciardi 

Vaccine induced inflammation could be partly responsible for the type 2 diabetes epidemic, as well as soaring metabolic syndrome rates.

In a little-known press release, Dr. J. Barthelow Classen found a 50% decrease in type 2 diabetes following the discontinuation of the tuberculosis vaccine.

The findings note that the reduction was observed after a single vaccine was removed from the equation.

Published in The Open Endocrinology Journal, Dr. Classen asserted that the increase in these conditions is a result of a hyperactive immune system leading to autoimmune destruction of insulin secreting cells.

“The current data shows that vaccines are much more dangerous than the public is lead to believe and adequate testing has never been performed even in healthy subjects to indicate that there is an overall improvement in health from immunization. The current practice of vaccinating diabetics as well as their close family members is a very risky practice,” says Dr. J. Barthelow Classen.

Vaccine inflammation prompts powerful cortisol response

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Dr. Classen also found that other individuals produce increased amounts of cortisol, an immune suppressing hormone, as a result of vaccine inflammation. The body produces cortisol to fight the inflammation that is occurring due to the vaccine, however, the cortisol in turn actually lowers immune function. This is essentially a recipe for disaster, one that Dr. Classen says can lead to type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

To further support the concept, the study found that Japanese children in particular develop an increased production of cortisol following immunization. Compared to white children, this cortisol response is much more significant. Providing further evidence, Japanese children actually have higher rates of type 2 diabetes but a  lower rates of insulin dependent diabetes compared to Whites. This is due to the lower cortisol response being attributed to type 1 diabetes, whereas a higher response is linked to type 2 diabetes.

This also explains why type 1 diabetics are generally leaner than type 2, since elevated cortisol levels prompt weight gain.

Sources:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/04/idUS88745+04-Apr-2008+PRN20080404
http://www.vaccines.net/newpage11.htm

Please visit Natural Society for more great health news and vaccine information.

Naomi Klein: How We Can Take on Corporate Power and Expand the Environmental Movement

Naomi Klein: How We Can Take on Corporate Power and Expand the Environmental Movement

On the eve of their annual celebration, Rainforest Action Network leader Rebecca Tarbotton talks with Naomi Klein about how to take on multinational giants and win.

Editor's Note: Last year when Rainforest Action Network turned 25, AlterNet's Don Hazen wrote, "Rainforest Action Network has always been a darling of progressives, a group many people respect for all the right reasons. RAN successfully challenges corporate power and remains focused on the grassroots. Over the years, RAN has exercised a creative aggressiveness that larger, more mainstream environmental groups seem to lack." Now, as the organization is about to celebrate its 26th birthday, RAN's executive director Rebecca Tarbotton interviews bestselling author and activist Naomi Klein. Much like RAN, Klein has consistently been a voice for economic justice, international people's movements and environmental sanity. Her sharp critique of corporate power has shaped a generation of activists. This week, Klein heads from New York's Occupy Wall Street protests to San Francisco where she will be honored with a World Rainforest Award at the annual REVEL.

Naomi Klein and Rebecca Tarbotton were recently together at the Tar Sands Action in Washington, DC, which inspired the following dialogue.

Rebecca Tarbotton: RAN is now in its 26th year, and I've been thinking a lot about our corporate campaigning model. As someone with expertise in analyzing corporate power, what have you seen as successful models for shifting the behavior of these multinational giants? Where is their weak underbelly?

Naomi Klein: The terrain is a hell of a lot more complicated than when I published No Logo 11 years ago and targets need to be chosen much more carefully. It sometimes works better not to go after the oil or coal company directly, but to go after the banks that lend them money, or the large corporations that buy their dirty energy (I'm thinking of the Bank of America, Facebook and Royal Bank of Canada campaigns here).
This can be more effective because the banks and corporate customers are less invested in the dirty business model themselves, so they have more flexibility to change course, whereas an oil company or a coal company isn't going to see the light and stop being an oil or a coal company. It can also work to use national values to our advantage -- Scandinavian investors are particularly receptive to ethical concerns. But the truth is that I've never believed that we can change the world one corporation at a time. What we can do is use corporate campaigns to make things so uncomfortable for a few big corporate players that this builds leverage for across-the-board regulation, which should always be the goal.

RT: You were recently arrested in Washington, DC, along with 1,252 others, during a two-week sit-in at the White House demanding President Obama deny the permit for a 1,700-mile tar sands pipeline. Do you think we are witnessing a historic moment for the climate movement in this country?

NK: I think we've never really had a climate movement, at least not a mass movement. We had climate campaigns, which raised awareness, but that's different. What is changing is that a new generation of young activists fully understands that change isn't going to come until a mass movement exists, one capable of exerting real political, social and economic pressure from outside the halls of power. The mass civil disobedience against Keystone XL was a huge step in that direction and it was thrilling to be a part of it.

RT: What are the key issues you think environmentalists should be focusing on?

NK: Expanding the movement beyond traditional environmentalists, and tapping into the broader public outrage at corporate greed and economic recklessness. If you are targeting Bank of America because it's lending money to coal companies, you need to be in coalition with all the other groups out there that are pissed at Bank of America for other reasons, first and foremost home foreclosures. The same logic that has trashed the economy is trashing the planet and we need to make those connections incessantly, because that's how you build a truly mass movement. In some ways, the task is less to get self-described environmentalists to focus on economic justice than it is to find ways to make environmental issues more relevant to those pre-occupied with economic justice.

I also think we need to keep focusing on the geographic choke points where we can keep coal and unconventional oil in the ground. Once again, it doesn't always make sense to go after the central target (the coal mine or oil well). The arteries are more vulnerable because the communities they pass through are less economically invested in a dirty business model. I think the tar sands has the potential to help build a massive continent-wide climate movement, precisely because it has so many arteries (multiple new pipelines in the works, machinery that needs to be transported, refinery expansions, export ports, tanker routes, etc.).

RT: What advice would you give to young activists who may be daunted by the problems we face and the work it would take to fix them?

The failures of our current economic model are now so obvious to the vast majority of people on the planet that there is political space to think big. This is the kind of moment in which deep transformation is possible. So of course it's daunting, but it's also exciting.

This week, RAN launched a campaign to give bank customers an opportunity to show their discontent with Bank of America by pledging to close their accounts. The "not one more dollar" pledges will be bundled--much like the big banks packaged mortgages for sale--and presented to Bank of America executives in protest of the bank's funding of coal, the country's number-one contributor to climate change. Find out more about the campaign and close your account here.

Shocking Report: 'Natural' breakfast cereals loaded with pesticides and GMOs - explosive new scorecard from Cornucopia reveals all

Shocking Report: 'Natural' breakfast cereals loaded with pesticides and GMOs - explosive new scorecard from Cornucopia reveals all by Mike Adams

For far too long, breakfast cereal makers have carried out highly deceptive product labeling and positioning campaigns through the use of the term "natural." Consumers are easily misled by this term, believing it to mean the product is free from pesticide chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients. But an explosive new investigation by the Cornucopia Institute (www.Cornucopia.org) -- the same group that exposed the widespread use of hexane solvents in soy protein -- is set to send shockwaves through the "natural" products industry by revealing which so-called "natural" brands actually contain high levels GMOs and toxic chemical pesticides.

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