Food Health Information Outlawed World Wide - NewsGrabs 13 April 2008

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and a wide range of (mostly) related sectors. Find what trends you may have missed - watch out for the weekly News Grabs.

The theme this week is information about health properties of foods. Governments are schizophrenic. On the one hand they preach we should eat well to prevent heart trouble and cancer. On the other hand, they bow to pressure from pharmaceutical manufacturers and outlaw any information that could even suggest that a food is healthy in anything but a generic sense. Preventing illness? No way. Healing? Forget about it. Only [pharma] medicine can prevent and heal illness!

Anyway, Here is this week's selection for you:

European Commission moves goalposts on health claims
According to the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health, the European Commission is signaling a potentially very restrictive attitude with regard to health claims for foods and supplements. "Health claims" are snippets of information that tell consumers that a food or a nutrient has certain positive health benefits. While publicly professing the need for "empowering consumers", the Commission officials are proposing to clamp down on the information that can be provided to extol the virtues of healthy foods and nutrients.

Shifting health claim criteria may provoke legal challenge
"We have had legal advice that says the legal platform for the Health and Nutrition Claims regulation is unbelievably shaky and this latest development only amplifies that position," he said. "The aim of the regulation is to ensure consumers have high quality information and choice. The regulation is not meeting its objectives and that may become significant in any legal challenge."

European Referendum for Natural Remedies
The protection of our health is one of the most fundamental human rights and yet, every year, millions of Europeans die from preventable health problems like heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Scientific findings have shown that these diseases (and many others) can be prevented using side-effect free natural remedies. To date, over 10,000 studies have been published in the scientific press and on the Internet demonstrating the vital importance of vitamins and other natural remedies.

However, laws are being introduced at national and European levels which will ban free access to this vital health information and to non-patentable natural remedies, such as vitamins.

We appeal to all responsible politicians in the European Union to carry out a 'Referendum for Natural Remedies' to guarantee every citizen in Europe the right to free and unrestricted access to vitamin therapies and other natural remedies.

New Zealand Government Clamps Down on Health Information (Claims)
MedSafe have stated “It is illegal for dietary supplements to make claims relating to any disease appearing in Schedule I of the Medicines Act (which contains all known diseases)” You may be interested to note that Acne, Rosacea, Psoriasis, Eczema have been added to the list of diseases only treatable by a medical professional and toxic drugs.

Schedule 1 essentially ensures that only pharmaceutical (toxic) medicines are allowed to treat disease. This is a similar situation to when only men could vote. The human race consists of two genders, both equally capable of voting, but a law made by men of the time for men excluded women. When women stood up and refused to accept this arbitrary and prejudicial law, it soon collapsed.

Passion fruit peel may ease breathing for asthmatics
A flavonoid-rich extract from purple passion fruit may ease wheezing amongst asthmatics, suggest findings from a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial.

"As many patients are not able to tolerate the currently available anti-asthmatic medications, a natural dietary supplement with low or no toxicity would be an attractive candidate for further development."

UK: Food agency calls for ban on six artificial colours
The Food Standards Agency recommended ministers call for manufacturers to remove six artificial colours by the end of 2009 and lobby for a European Union-wide ban. The FSA's advice to parents will be strengthened to warn them about the dangers of the E-numbers tartrazine (E102), quinoline yellow (E104), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), ponceau 4R (E124) and allura red (E129).

These colours and the preservative sodium benzoate (E211) were linked to hyperactivity in a £750,000 study by Southampton University, which found they made primary school children become distracted and fail a computer attention test.

And when are we going to see a repeal of the utterly stupid system of coding additives with so-called E numbers which only makes it more difficult to know what we're eating? If you live in Europe, you've got to learn a whole lot of numbers by heart these days to even find out what's in your food and drink!

The Aspartame/Nutrasweet Fiasco
FDA approved Aspartame despite proof of toxicity
In October 1980 the Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) impaneled by the FDA to evaluate aspartame safety found that the chemical caused an unacceptable level of brain tumors in animal testing. Based on this fact, the PBOI ruled that aspartame should not be added to the food supply.

Aspartame Can Mess Up Your Body and Brain
"It was seen that aspartame disturbs amino acid metabolism, protein structure and metabolism, integrity of nucleic acids [which are the building blocks of DNA], neuronal function, endocrine [hormonal] balances, and changes in the brain concentrations of catecholamines [brain chemicals such as noradrenaline and dopamine that can affect, among other things, mood].

"It was also reported that aspartame and its breakdown products cause nerves to fire excessively, which indirectly causes a very high rate of neuron depolarization [which basically means aspartame has the capacity to 'excite' nerve cells].

The World According to Monsanto
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.

Expert Predicts GM Crops Will Soon be Obsolete
"The United States has lost millions of dollars in exports (due to the rejection of GM crops in Europe)," said Kimbrell. Resistance to GMOs in these markets also stopped the development of GM wheat and rice. He also said that the science underlying genetic engineering is obsolete, and that genetic engineers have not been able to develop any other GM traits besides herbicide resistance and built-in pesticides. "They can't develop other things," he said. Finally, Kimbrell said the anti-GMO movement will stop the technology. "We will put pressure on companies that buy GM sugar beets. There is no way this industry can survive."

Unintended GMO Health Risks
In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration claimed that they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different from conventionally grown foods and therefore were safe to eat. But internal memos made public by a lawsuit reveal that their position was staged by political appointees under orders from the White House to promote GMOs. FDA scientists, on the other hand, warned that GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long term safety studies, but were ignored.

North American Farmers' Experience with GMOs

Promotion of GMOs as allowing farmers to grow “high-quality food profitably”, in an “environmentally sensitive way”, and to attain “high yields while using less herbicide” sounds more and more fraudulent.

GM varieties are not "high quality" - 99 per cent of GM crops are either herbicide tolerant or produce a bacterial toxin (BT), neither can the application of herbicides be described as "environmentally sensitive". There is also no evidence that GM crops produce more than their traditional ancestors - the opposite is true if anything.

When is someone going to sue Monsanto & Co for fraudulent promotion?

MERCURY FILLINGS BANNED IN NORWAY
The Townsend Letter, a well-known journal for holistic medicine practitioners, announced recently in 2008 that mercury has been banned from all dental fillings in Norway. From the beginning of this year dentists in Norway have to start using safer alternatives. The ban goes further than amalgam fillings, covering many other products; including measuring instruments such as thermometers and sphygmomanometers for measuring blood pressure.

Norway has always been a leader in banning mercury, one of the worst neurotoxins known to man. Norway had previously restricted the use of ama