Consumers urge Irish to vote NO to EU Lisbon treaty - NewsGrabs 8 June 2008
European consumer organizations urge Irish voters to say "No" to Lisbon Treaty
Consumer organizations and NGOs in Europe warn of a growing democratic deficit in Europe and urge Irish voters to say NO to the treaty of Lisbon. No other country of Europe's 27 is permitting their people to vote on the issue, even though the people of France and the Netherlands resoundingly rejected a similar proposal two years ago.
Copenhagen Consensus 2008 The world’s best investment: Vitamins for undernourished children
Over two years, more than 50 economists have worked to find the best solutions to ten of the world’s biggest challenges. During the last week of May, an expert panel of 8 top-economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, sat down to assess the research.
The result: A prioritized list highlighting the potential of 30 specific solutions to combat some of the biggest challenges facing the world.
Combating malnutrition in the 140 million children who are undernourished reached the number one spot, after economist Sue Horton of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada made her case to the expert panel.
Providing micronutrients for 80% of the 140 million children who lack essential vitamins in the form of vitamin A capsules and a course of zinc supplements would cost just $60 million per year, according to the analysis. More importantly, this action holds yearly benefits of more than $1 billion.
Study links vitamin D, type 1 diabetes
In this new study, the researchers found that populations living at or near the equator, where there is abundant sunshine (and ultraviolet B irradiance) have low incidence rates of type 1 diabetes. Conversely, populations at higher latitudes, where available sunlight is scarcer, have higher incidence rates. These findings add new support to the concept of a role of vitamin D in reducing risk of this disease.
Pomegranate extract good for joint health
"The results of these translational studies and studies reported previously together provide strong and compelling evidence to support further clinical testing of pomegranate extract for the prevention of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis," wrote lead author Meenakshi Shukla from Case Western Reserve University and the University Hospitals of Cleveland.Pomegranate, a rich source of antioxidants, has been linked to improved heart health, but a growing body of science indicates the fruit protect against prostate cancer and slowing cartilage loss in arthritis.
HDL Cholesterol May Not Help The Heart After All
The good cholesterol that scientists have thought helped unclog arteries had no effect on heart disease in a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, casting doubt on a theory drugmakers have spent more than $1 billion pursuing...
Drinking or even showering in tap water can double the risk of having deformed children, says study
A study of almost 400,000 babies found a clear link between chemicals formed during chlorination and the occurrence of a trio of birth defects.It is thought the chemicals may harm the unborn baby directly. Alternatively they may damage the woman's eggs. Although the study did not prove that the chemicals caused the birth defects, it is not the first to make the link.
FDA Must Classify Mercury Fillings
On Monday, June 2, we settled our lawsuit, Moms Against Mercury et al. v. Von Eschenbach, Commissioner, et al. FDA will finish classifying within one year of the close of the public comment period on its amalgam policy, that is, by July 28, 2009.There’s more good news. During a several hour negotiation session, FDA agreed to change its website on amalgam -- dramatically. Gone, gone, gone are all of FDA’s claims that no science exists that amalgam is unsafe, or that other countries have acted for environmental reasons only, or that the 2006 Scientific Panel vote affirmed amalgam’s safety.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Mercury teeth fillings may harm some: U.S. FDA
"Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses," the FDA said in a notice on its Web site."Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner," the agency said.
Cancer Research: More Profit Than Progress
Taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars on Cancer research, AIDS research and mental illness research. Yet, there is little evidence demonstrating that this largely commercial enterprise has borne clinically beneficial fruits. The consensus of the world's biggest gathering of cancer specialists, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, concedes that "when looking at the overall picture there has been shockingly little progress."
Psychiatrists Fail to Reveal Drug Pay
New York Times - (may require you to register)
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators.
Drug companies pay famous psychiatrists to grease the wheels and here we go - drugging a whole generation of children.We need a hundred Grassleys all over the world...
New Mexico: Pro Aspartame Legislators fail in reelection bid
Two New Mexico senators who opposed a bill that would have put the artificial sweetener aspartame out of business in the state, Shannon Robinson and Dan Foley, failed to get re-elected according to Stephen Fox, who campaigned for the bill's passage.
Kidney Patients Should be Notified of Potential Risk from Fluorides and Fluoridated Drinking Water
A new position paper from the National Kidney Foundation concludes that individuals with chronic kidney disease should be notified of the potential risk from exposure to fluorides. The document acknowledges gaping holes in research concerning kidney impacts from fluorides, lending new ammunition to the growing numbers of cities, health professionals, water agencies, and citizens who question industry and government assertions that water fluoridation has been proven safe.
Mental Illness or Social Sickness?
While medical diagnoses are based on science, psychiatric “diagnoses” are not at all scientific. They do not reveal what is wrong, what is the preferred treatment, and what is the likely outcome. Nor are they reliable. Different psychiatrists who examine the same patient typically offer different “diagnoses.” Moreover, psychiatric “diagnoses” move in and out of favor, depending on a variety of social factors.
Paxil Babies: The Dangers of AntidepressantsWe have all heard about "crack babies" (newborns addicted to crack cocaine because their mothers were using it during pregnancy). What about "Paxil babies"?
Two major studies comparing the health of newborns from depressed mothers who took antidepressants versus newborns of depressed mothers who did not take antidepressants show that newborns are better off with mothers not taking antidepressants.
Bipolar Disorder: Epidemic Without a Disease
"The disease is hard to pin down." "Its unclear how they (the drugs) work." This is not medical science, it is the "medical-speak" of "biological," psychiatry that is deceptive, fraudulent, and intent on peddling drugs. When, the patient is known to be normal but is called "diseased" and is "medicated," is that not poisoning? Is it not assault and battery? If the same patient dies, what is that called?
Atlanta: State mental hospital's problems caused preventable deaths
Federal investigators, the letter said, found that medical and nursing care "substantially depart from generally accepted professional standards." They also determined that the hospital provides inadequate psychiatric treatment; uses seclusion and restraint, including sedatives, inappropriately; and fails to "adequately protect its patients from harm."
AIDS: FOLLOW THE MONEY
So the Global Fund’s allocation to Kyrgyzstan, at $29 million, represents about $150,000 per death and about $7000 per patient. While that may seem excessively generous, perhaps it was goided by the budgeting of the National Institutes of Health, which called in 2007 for about $180,000 per AIDS death in the United States (allocaitons for other diseases were, for example, just under $10,000 per cancer death and $2600 per cardiovascular death.
Why UNAIDS should be disbanded
“UNAIDS — the U.N.’s specialist AIDS advocacy body — has raised some US$110 billion for the next five years: . . . AIDS will shortly become the biggest single item in foreign aid. . . . UNAIDS has systematically exaggerated the size and trend of the pandemic, in addition to hyping the potential for HIV epidemics in ‘general’ populations. . . . But UNAIDS’s claims are not supported by the epidemiologic data.
Generation X-Ray - Child victims of Technological abuse
No sane parent would submit his child to 1600 chest X-rays over a 24 hour period. Yet a mere 24 hours of wireless phone radiation can inflict the same damage to a child’s tissues as 1600 chest X-rays. This is the crux of studies completed by 12 groups of researchers from seven European countries who collaborated in the REFLEX study project to gauge the effects of wireless radiation on human health.The U.S. government allowed wireless phones to be put on the market in the 1980s with absolutely no safety testing. Today, REFLEX research demonstrates that Wi-phones blasting high-frequency microwaves are basically personal X-ray devices. This shocking reality gives rise to the term "Generation X-ray."
The Cell Phone and the Cell - the Role of Calcium
Alternating electromagnetic fields such as those from mobile telecommunications have many seemingly unrelated effects on health, including the promotion of cancer, reductions in fertility and various brain disorders. This article explains how almost all of them may stem from a common cause; i.e. the removal of divalent ions such as calcium from cell membranes.The recent increases in allergies and allergy-related conditions may also be due to membrane leakage. Our bodies are normally protected from the ingress of foreign materials by "tight junction" barriers where the gaps between the cells are sealed. They occur in the brain, skin, nose, lungs and gut. Mobile phone radiation or the chemical removal of calcium makes them more permeable to large molecules and can let in allergens, toxins and carcinogens.
Stung by losses, nation's beekeepers try to rebuild
Jeff Pettis, lead researcher at the service's Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, Md., who conducted the survey, said there are no clear-cut answers. "We don't have one thing we can point to; we're looking at a lot of combinations," Pettis said. "It's a combination of some primary stress on the colony that could include low-level pesticide exposure, poor nutrition, Varroa mites — or something else — that allow visitors to take advantage of a weakened host. Then we're seeing a secondary invader actually kill the colony." Despite plenty of attention for several years, the problem is still growing.What about electromagnetic radiation as a weakening influence. There seems to be a real reluctance to even consider that possibility. Perhaps the billions governments rake in from selling "spectrum" to mobile operators preclude entertaining that there could be anything wrong with electromagnetic pollution?
Verichip: Implantable chip manufacturer in financial doldrums
VeriChip’s media efforts have done little to salvage the company’s public image or its financial performance, both of which plummeted after research linking the implantable microchip to cancer was widely revealed by the Associated Press in September 2007. The same company that once predicted revenues in the “billions” earned just $3,000 from its microchip implant operations in the first quarter of 2008, as patients shun the device that many are now calling the “cancer chip.”
Ban GMO Now Says Institute of Science in Society
The best thing about the human genome project is to finally explode the myth of genetic determinism, revealing the layers of molecular complexity that transmit, interpret and rewrite the genetic texts. These processes are precisely orchestrated and finely tuned by the organism as a whole, in a highly coordinated molecular ‘dance of life’ that’s necessary for survival.In contrast, genetic engineering in the laboratory is crude, imprecise and invasive. The rogue genes inserted into a genome to make a GMO could land anywhere; typically in a rearranged or defective form, scrambling and mutating the host genome, and have the tendency to move or rearrange further once inserted, basically because they do not know the dance of life. That’s ultimately why genetic modification doesn’t work and is also dangerous.
Bananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture
So, what solution is being bandied about for the coming tragic loss of bananas five to twenty years from now? This is even scarier than all that Chiquita has done to this point. The primary suggestion offered is genetic engineering. Scientists are already at work mapping the banana's genome. Already, there are genetic experiments to modify bananas with the hepatitis B vaccine and with fish. That this sort of solution is nothing more than the next, utterly insane, step in a food system already mad with monoculture seems to be of no concern. The time of the mad scientist is now.
Farmers and Food Activists Expelled from Hunger Summit
Farmer and civil society leaders carrying out a peaceful action today in Rome, Italy at the FAO Summit on the Food Crisis were forcefully removed from the premises. At around 1:30pm farmers and representatives of civil society organisations staged an action at the press room to deliver a message that millions of additional people are joining the ranks of the hungry as the corporations that control the global food system are making record profits.
World Leaders Warned of Phony Solutions to Global Food Crisis
Friends of the Earth is today issuing a stark warning to world leaders attending the United Nations food security conference in Rome that biofuels, GM and international trade liberalisation are false solutions to the current global food crisis that will push millions more people into hunger and poverty while worsening climate change.
The Food Crisis: Destroying African Agriculture
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets.
What should we think of free trade?
“The closer the economy approaches the scale of the whole Earth the more it will have to conform to the physical behavior mode of the Earth. That behavior mode is a steady state—a system that permits qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth. Growth is more of the same stuff; development is the same amount of better stuff (or at least different stuff).”Herman Daly writes about the advisability of "free trade" policy as it is practiced today, where not only goods but also capital (and to some degree labor) is mobile...
Daly's thinking backs what I said in an earlier article on this site: Free Trade is not the solution
31,000 scientists reject 'global warming'
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."So much for a media manufactured "consensus" on humans causing global warming.- - -
More information out there...
There is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.
...
Dr Mercola's health blog and Mike Adams' Natural News have great health information.
The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is a place where you can discuss and exchange information on what is happening in the world of natural health.
For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.
If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News.
A few sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't necessarily find on your tv or in the papers:
http://therealnews.com/
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/... and remember:
The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday June 8 2008
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2008/06/08/consumers_urge_irish_to_vote_no_to_eu_lisbon_treaty_newsgrabs_8_june_2008.htm
