European Food Rules and the FDA - NewsGrabs 20 January 2008

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and related sectors. Find what you may have missed - watch out for NewsGrabs.

Here is this week's selection:

Fruit, Veggie Eaters Have Fewer Strokes
Low Vitamin C Levels Linked to Stroke Risk
In one of the largest studies ever to examine the issue, albeit indirectly, University of Cambridge researchers measured vitamin C levels in more than 20,000 people, who were then followed for roughly a decade. Blood vitamin C levels tend to be much higher in people who eat lots of fruits and vegetables than in people who do not. When the participants were divided into four groups based on vitamin C levels, those with the highest concentrations of the vitamin in their blood were found to have a 42% lower stroke risk than those with the lowest concentrations.

Iodine for Health
There is growing evidence that Americans would have better health and a lower incidence of cancer and fibrocystic disease of the breast if they consumed more iodine. A decrease in iodine intake coupled with an increased consumption of competing halogens, fluoride and bromide, has created an epidemic of iodine deficiency in America.

Comment from a friend: MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THIS RESEARCH IS THAT IODINE REMOVES ALL FLOURIDE FROM THE BODY, THIS GETS RID OF YEARS OF BUILD UP FROM THE NWO SECRETION OF IT INTO WATER AND IT ELIMINATES THE EFFECTS OF MIND CONTROL.

Selenium: The Moon Goddess’ Role in Human Health
The proteins that selenium seeds have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune enhancing properties that altogether foster a long, healthy life, akin to what Selene sought for Endymion (if in sleep) in Greek mythology. Selenium blood levels tend to fall as people age. In one study, investigators followed 1,300 people age 60–71 years for 9 years and found that those with the greatest decrease in blood selenium had the highest likelihood of cognitive decline.

Europe: New regulations for novel foods proposed
The European Commission has adopted a proposal revising the Novel Foods Regulation so that new and innovative foods have better access to the EU market, while consumer protection is guaranteed. 'Novel foods' include those which are produced using new techniques and technologies, and those that have no history of consumption within the EU, but have been consumed elsewhere.

One of the indicators of a novel food, according to the proposal, is the use of emerging technologies in breeding and food production processes. These may have an impact on food, and thus food safety.

'Novel food should therefore include foods derived from plants and animals, produced by non-traditional breeding techniques, and foods modified by new production processes, such as nanotechnology and nanoscience, which might have an impact on food,' states the paper. 'Food derived from new plant varieties, or animal breeds produced by traditional breeding techniques, should not be considered as novel foods,' it adds.

European Food Safety Authority consultation on botanicals
EFSA has just launched a public consultation on the draft approach it proposes for assessing the safety of botanicals used as food supplements. Botanicals and derived preparations made from plants, algae, fungi or lichens, have become widely available on the EU market. Examples include ginkgo, garlic, St. John’s Wort and ginseng.

All interested parties are invited to submit feedback on the proposed approach, as well as additional sources of information for the compendia by responding to the consultation by 15 February 2008. Comments should be submitted by means of the electronic form available on the EFSA website.

7-year plan aligns U.S. with Europe's economy
Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015. The Transatlantic Policy Network – a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels – is advised by the bi-partisan congressional TPN policy group, chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

Bennett also confirmed that what has become known as the "Merkel initiative" would allow the Transatlantic Economic Council to integrate and harmonize administrative rules and regulations between the U.S. and the EU "in a very quiet way," without introducing a new free trade agreement to Congress.

The FDA is among the agencies that are "harmonizing" the rules and this should have quite some effects on the way health foods are treated on both sides of the Atlantic...

The FDA Attacks Women – Declares Estriol Illegal
In a shocking and blatant attack on women, the FDA has declared estriol illegal. This move is designed to stop compounding pharmacies from making bio-identical hormone creams and will also stop over-the-counter estriol-containing creams from being sold to women. The FDA has no report of any problem from these creams. It is acting on a complaint from Wyeth (the makers of estrogen-containing horse urine extract and Centrum vitamins). Millions of women are adversely affected.

FDA Ignores Consumer Opposition & Approves Cloned Food
"The agency announced today that it has finalized its risk assessment on eating meat and milk from cloned animals, the final step before a voluntary moratorium on selling these products is lifted. FDA's draft risk assessment relied on only a handful of studies conducted by the cloning industry and included little long-term evidence. Even the agency's own science board released a report last month stating that FDA has a 'lack of expertise in risk/benefit assessment.'

The FDA is not alone in this. Also the European Food Safety Authority is chiming in with noises of approval. Looks like cloned meat will be forced on us in the name of more profits for AG business.

FDA to declare cold meds too risky for tots
Parents may be left with only love and lots of liquid to give their sniffling babies and toddlers now that the government is declaring over-the-counter cough and cold medicines too risky for tots.

Actually, in an earlier article the same paper said that honey seems to work just fine for kids' coughs.

Australia: Concerns over govt's nanotech strategy
Nanotechnology is the precision engineering of materials at a scale of one ten-thousandth of the width of a human hair. The technology could be worth $US1 trillion ($A1.13 trillion) by 2020, a government-commissioned report found in 2006. But concerns have been raised about unexpected side effects which have the potential to slip through the human body's usual defences to conventional chemicals.

EU Raids Drugmakers In Antitrust Probe
“We have launched this inquiry because pharmaceuticals markets are not working as well as they might. Patent protection has never been stronger, but the number of new pharmaceuticals coming to market is declining. Patents can sometimes be invented around and will always expire eventually, but generic manufacturers are not jumping into the markets as quickly as we would expect.”

United Kingdom: NHS performance 'kills thousands'
The TaxPayers' Alliance compared World Health Organization data for five leading European countries. It found the NHS had 17,157 extra deaths in 2004 compared with the other countries' average when taking into account age and burden of disease.

Scientific Study Finds Fluoride Horror Stories Factual
Industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans lowers IQ, causes cancer The establishment media will have to find a new tactic with which to ridicule those who oppose the fluoridation of water after a major new Scientific American report concluded that "Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift" as new evidence emerges of the poison's link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ.

Kevin Miller's New "Generation Rx" Documentary To Expose Mass Betrayal of Children by FDA, Big Pharma
Not many films have the potential to radically reshape the understanding of an entire nation and create positive change for the health of future generations, but this is one that clearly qualifies. "Generation Rx" delivers a devastating blow to the psychiatric drug pushers, FDA puppets and Big Pharma marketing fraudsters who have sold an entire nation on an absurd idea that turns out to be a grand medical hoax: that millions of children have "chemical imbalances" in their brains requiring treatment with patented, profitable pharmaceutical drugs like Prozac and Ritalin.

Hormone Replacement Therapy increases Cancer Risk after only 3 years
Postmenopausal women who take combined estrogen/progestin hormone-replacement therapy for three years or more face a fourfold increased risk of developing various forms of lobular breast cancer, according to