Media Does Alter Your Peceptions on Health, Not for the Better

I am amazed at the response to TV advertising to Centrum's new Cardio vitamins, all filled with genetically modified vegetable oil from the bulk of commodities that can;t be sold in Europe or other places because of it's toxic GMO ingredients.

Not in America as I see the reactions to advertising based on this BLOG's activity.

Now here is another thing for you to consider in light of the major news services (AP, UPI, Fox, Medical News Today and other sources.

Consider this factual report- thanks to Ralph Moss - on a health promoting vitamin you might not read about elsewhere:

TWISTING THE RECORD ON VITAMIN D

A team of researchers led by National Cancer Institute (NCI) epidemiologist Dr. Michal Freedman has published an article suggesting that vitamin D is highly successful in reducing deaths from cancers of the colon and rectum. The researchers studied 16,818 people who had joined a nationwide U.S. government health survey between 1988 and 1994. The volunteers were then followed through the year 2000, by which time 536 had died of cancer. The study found that people with relatively high blood levels of vitamin D when they entered the study had a 72 percent reduction in their risk of dying of colorectal cancer compared to those with lower levels of vitamin D.

The article was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in early November 2007 (although news of it broke a week earlier). The researchers were quoted as saying that the findings in colorectal cancer were consistent with other studies of vitamin D. On the other hand, the study did not establish a more generalized link between high levels of vitamin D and a reduction in the overall risk of dying from various cancers, including those of the lung, prostate, and breast.

There are important questions about the methodology used in this study, issues that may have limited the researchers' ability to detect some of the positive effects of vitamin D. But even if the methodology and conclusions of the Freedman study were correct, it is not so much the results that are disappointing, but the spin that the mainstream media put on the findings. The reaction of the media to the study revealed in a stark way their deeply ingrained prejudice against nutritional solutions to cancer.

The Reuters news agency did report the study correctly and with a properly nuanced understanding of its positive and negative aspects. The headline of the Reuters report read: "Vitamin D Cuts Colon Cancer Death Risk." The article, by writer Will Dunham, began: "People with higher vitamin D levels are less likely to die of colorectal cancer, researchers said on Tuesday, but the vitamin does not appear to affect the chances of dying from any other type of cancer" (Oct 31, 2007). This is a fair summary of the paper's conclusions. One other source, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., or CDC, also got it right: "Vitamin D Cuts Colorectal Cancer Risk."

But most news outlets that I saw emphasized the negative aspect of the findings, that vitamin D, as one put it, was no "magic bullet" for cancer (as if anyone said it was). Here are some of the headlines of stories that were published hours after the news of the study first broke:

* "Vitamin D May Not Reduce Cancer Deaths" (AP)
* "Vitamin D May Not Lower Risk of Cancer Deaths" (Fox)
* "Vitamin D Is Not Magic Bullet for Cancer" (Wired News)
* "Vitamin D Won't Help Prevent Most Cancers" (HealthDay)
* "Vitamin D Doesn't Prevent Cancer Deaths" (Windsor Star)
* "Vitamin D Benefit At Issue" (Ft. Worth Star)
* "No Connection Found Between Vitamin D and Overall Cancer Deaths" (Medical News Today)
* "Vitamin D Doesn't Reduce Cancer Risk" (Nutraingredients.com)
* "Vitamin D Does Not Reduce Overall Cancer Mortality" (ANI India News)
* "Vitamin D Has No Effect on Overall Cancer Death Rate" (Medical News Today, 2nd article)
* "Study Raises Questions About Vitamin D and Cancer" (KWWL Iowa)
* "Vitamin D Downgrade As Scientists Advise There is No Real Proof It Fights Cancer" (Daily Mail)

According to the study, "Colorectal cancer mortality was inversely related to serum 25(OH)D level." (Serum 25(OH)D is a standard biochemical marker that is used to determine blood levels of vitamin D.) Participants in the study who had 25(OH)D levels of 80 nmol/L or higher had a 72 percent risk reduction in colorectal cancer compared to people who had levels lower than 50 nmol/L (Freedman 2007).


A Thought Experiment


So let us now imagine that everyone who had vitamin D levels of 50 nmol/L could be brought up to the level of 80 nmol/L. This could be accomplished through the judicious use of vitamin D supplements. Another way would be through increased sunlight exposure, although that is controversial since it might also raise the risk of some skin cancers.

The American Cancer Society anticipates that in 2007 a total of 52,180 Americans will die of colorectal cancer, representing approximately 10 percent of all cancer deaths (Cancer Facts and Figures 2007). If you prevented 72 percent of these deaths you would save 37,570 lives each year. To comprehend this graphically, the seating capacity of Fenway Park in Boston is 38,805. Thus, you could nearly fill this stadium to capacity with the people whose deaths from colorectal cancer could be avoided each and every year. Worldwide, the United Nations estimates that there are 500,000 deaths from colorectal cancer each year (W.H.O. World Cancer Report 2003). A 72 percent reduction would mean 360,000 lives saved each year. That's a lot of lives saved and a lot of misery avoided!

There is some disagreement over how much vitamin D is necessary in order to raise the blood level to 80 nmol/L. As a general rule, the government advocates the intake of 400 IU vitamin D per day. But some Canadian experts feel that a minimum of 800 IU/day to 1000 IU/day may be needed, with up to 2000 IU/day to 4000 IU/day in special circumstances (Canadian Pediatric Society 2007).

One hundred tablets of 800 IU of vitamin D can be purchased on the Internet for under $2.00 ($1.94). Thus, most people could supply themselves with sufficient amounts of supplemental vitamin D for 2¢ per day, or around $7.50 per year. By comparison, Leonard Saltz, M.D., an expert on colon cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, N.Y., has estimated that the cost of chemotherapy for advanced colon cancer is approximately $250,000. Thus the cost of treating just one case of colon cancer would be enough to prevent death from colon cancer in over 30,000 cases. This is a perspective that somehow failed to come across in the vast majority of recent media stories about vitamin D and cancer.

Dark and Good

At least a decade or more ago I sat in on a lecture about herbs for those over 40. Since I was in that age range I found it a good choice from the available presentations at this conference.

One of the suggested foods included in a list of health promoting food and herbs was chocolate.

Of course the chocolate was plain cocoa powder or raw chocolate. While we love it in its marketed form we should consider the downside of too much of sweetened and fat added treat. Organic and non-GMO chocolate is the best kind for health you know.

This can be expanded now to the fact that many commercial produces, like Hershey's, is using genetically modified chocolate in their products.

We offer a great organic cocoa powder and organic raw chocolate, just contact us to order.

Now consider this, something I learned then, coming out of the dark for your consideration.

Sex and chocolate 'boost brain power' By Lewis Carter

Lots of sex, dark chocolate and the Scandinavian routine of cold meat for breakfast are the best ways to boost brain power, a new book claims.

And watching soap operas, mixing with serial moaners and fat-free diets should be avoided in the quest for increased mental ability, the book says.

Much of the advice in Teach Yourself Training Your Brain is unconventional, but its co-authors, Terry Horne and Simon Wootton, say it is based on leading scientific research.

They claim that people can combat the considered wisdom that the brain deteriorates with age.

Mr Horne, a university lecturer, said: "For decades we have thought that the capacity of our brains is genetically determined, whereas it's now clear it's a lifestyle choice.

"People can make lifestyle choices that will not only prevent what used to be seen as an inevitable decline in cognitive ability after the age of 17, but will constantly increase it throughout our adult lives.

"Our suggestions will empower people to develop their cognitive capacity or just to let it die."

The book analyses how diet, the environment and stress affect mental capacity. It offers advice and mental exercises for people hoping to increase their brain power.

Much of the book's suggestions are based upon the chemicals that certain activities release in the body.

It says that sexual intercourse increases the body's levels of the hormone oxytocin, which induces a readiness to think of novel solutions, while the post-coital rise in serotonin levels also helps both creative thinking and logic.

In terms of food, the book suggests that the hidden ingredients of dark chocolate - such as magnesium and antioxidants - help get more oxygen to the brain.

It also recommends eating cold meat for breakfast to increase the body's energy levels and nutrient intake.

The authors will be hoping the book cashes in on the increasingly lucrative brain-training market - the games manufacturer Nintendo has sold 10 million of its hand-held Brain Age games this year.

The book also advises on the kind of company one should keep. Mr Horne said: "Mix with people who make you laugh. Avoid people who whinge, as people who are negative will make you depressed."

How to get most out of food for your brain

• Do eat oily fish, which are high in omega 3 fatty acids

• Do eat broccoli, a great source of vitamin K

• Do eat a diet rich in wholegrain foods such as cereals and pasta

• Do eat tomatoes, high in antioxidants

• Do eat blackcurrants, rich in Vitamin C

• Don't drink too much alcohol, which kills off brain cells

• Don't skip breakfast, it's a vital source of the energy

• Don't eat too many high-fat foods

• Don't eat too much junk food or drink too many fizzy drinks


12/3/2007-Copyright telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group

Anti-Aging Doctor Cleared of Wrongdoing in Federal Indictment

Lying to cover up lying is the current standard for government based bureaucrats who cannot seem to think for themselves. This is just one example.

"This was the most obscene miscarriage of justice I have witnessed and the jury agreed with us", says Kevin Mirch in response to the acquittal of his client Dr. James Forsythe The November 1 jury acquittal of Forsythe came after a six day federal trial that saw Federal Court Judge Howard McKibben throw out one and a half of the two counts, Forsythe's defense team choosing not to offer a defense, and a jury deliberation that lasted less than two hours.

In a case that played out more like a movie than a federal investigation, Dr. Forsythe, a respected Reno medical oncologist and homeopath, became a victim of a remarkable string of vicious and illegal actions on the part of the Federal Drug Administration, Immigration Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Attorney's office. This was all carried out under the watch of the recently terminated former U.S. Attorney District of Nevada, Daniel Bogden. It also ensnared the wife of the governor of Nevada, a former Nevada Homeland Security chief and his high powered attorney wife, a disgraced Federal agent and a former disgruntled employee.

Dr. Forsythe's case started thirty-three months ago when federal agents came into his home, shoved the 67 year old physician to the floor with a gun to his head. A gun was also held on his wife, Earlene Forsythe, an influential political figure and then head of the Nevada Republican Party. The agents were looking for "Biotropin", a legally approved human growth hormone that Forsythe was using on a handful of older patients that were hormone deficient.

"It is appalling that the Government was ignorant of the fact that this drug was approved, says Mirch, and it became a travesty when they refused to back down." During the investigation the U.S. Attorney's office refused to release all the exculpatory evidence when ordered by the Federal District Court Judge. There was also evidence tampering in an attempt to further vilify Dr. Forsythe.

"Over three hundred of my patient's charts were taken by the Feds without the patient's approval. This deprived me of the opportunity to manage their cases properly", says Dr. Forsythe. "This was in violation of all HIPPA laws, and may have indirectly lead to the deaths of eleven of my cancer patients."

"Dishonest people are very skilled and ingenious at disguising their perversion of the truth" Author unknown

California's Life-Giving Raw Milk Will Become Illegal March 2008

I grew up in the days when raw milk was a common food. It came in glass bottles and the cream was still on the top. My children who both are now in their 40s grew up on raw milk with absolutely no problem.

I wonder if diminished immunity in children caused by too many vaccines and antibiotics at very early ages doesn't contribute to the problem beleived to be the reason why government does not want you to have access to the health promoting benefits of raw milk.

A healthy gut is very able to fight of disease.

Once homogenization started heart disease rates started to skyrocket. This is because once the fat is homogenized it becomes indigestible and passes right along into the blood stream. Imagine that!

Once pasteurization became law and your access to real food in its natural state dwindled over the decades more disease states can be atrributed to daily.

Now that GMO hormones have been regulaly feed to dairy cows along with other drugs and curtailing their pasture grazing milk has become nothing but a white liquid wary or our consumption.

In the old days many traditional naturopaths used raw milk as a healing food.

Happy are those who remain in countries with access to pure raw milk.

by Rami Nagel

Many people’s lives and good health depend on their access to certified, raw grass-fed milk from happy cows. California used to have one of the most liberal raw milk laws in the country, allowing raw milk to be purchased in grocery stores. However, on January 1, 2008, California raw milk producers will face new requirements for bacteria counts in the milk they sell to consumers. All raw milk must have 10 coliform bacteria or fewer per milliliter under the new law signed on October 8th by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“This new law limits the sale of perfectly healthy, pathogen-free milk,” says Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy, the largest raw milk dairy in the United States. “Most batches of our milk will not comply with the new legislation. By about January 20th, under the new law, our milk will be available to consumers intermittently at best. Thousands of our customers who visit 300 stores in California each week will be without a source of raw milk.”

The new law has to do with the level of a non-pathogenic bacteria called Coliform, that does not cause illness. These are killed by pasteurization. This new law does not test for pathogens, so it is totally arbitrary.

Raw milk is a health giving food, while pasteurized milk can be life depleting. This is because life-giving anti-microbial and immune-supporting components are reduced and destroyed by pasteurization.

Back in the 20s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses. Today's pasteurized milk, from cows crammed in cages loaded with synthetic hormones, is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare. In fact, a supply of high quality dairy products was considered vital to American security and the economic well being of the nation.

What is Wrong With Pasteurization?

Probably pasteurization's worst offense is that it makes insoluble the major part of the calcium contained in raw milk. This frequently leads to rickets, bad teeth, and nervous system troubles. This is because sufficient calcium content is vital to children; and with the loss of phosphorus also associated with the calcium loss, bone and brain formation suffer serious setbacks.

Pasteurization also destroys 20 percent of the iodine present in raw milk, causes constipation, and generally robs the milk of its most vital qualities.

Your Actions Can Help

California resident or not, you may be affected by this precedent setting law because similar laws may be sneaked into agricultural codes in different states.

Finally, raw milk is an excellent food for children because it helps them grow strong. Without the access to raw milk, thousands of children around California will be starving for the life-giving food they need to grow.

Take Action

1) Ask Governor Schwarzenegger To stop Enforcement of This Law.
Fax to the Governor at 1-916-445-4633

2) If you are a California resident, please contact Theo Copley in San
Francisco to add your name to the class-action suit; she will email you the form.
Theo Copley (tcopley@ziplink.net)

3) Legal bills may run high, if you know an attorney or law firm that might be
interested in this case and for donations, please contact Theo Copley at:
Theo Copley (tcopley@ziplink.net)

Learn more about the health and Safety benefits of raw milk at www.realmilk.com

About the author - Rami Nagel is a father who cares about the way we affect each other, our children, and our planet through our lifestyle choices. His health background is in hands-on energy healing, Hatha & Bhakti yoga and the Pathwork.
Rami is author of several health resources:
www.curetoothdecay.com - Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition!
www.healingourchildren.net - Learn the Cause and Prevention of the Diseases of Pregnancy and Childhood
www.preconceptionhealth.org - A Program for Preconception Health based on Indigenous Wisdom
www.yourreturn.org - The cause of disease and the end of suffering of humanity.

Abundant Evidence to Warn People Against GE Crops

Straight to the Source

1.There's abundant evidence to warn people against GE crops

2."GM Canola will be everywhere and that is inevitable" - expert

Announcements in Victoria and NSW that genetically engineered (GE) crops will be allowed threaten more than just the income of Australia's farmers and food companies. There is irrefutable evidence that GE foods are unsafe to eat.

Working with more than 30 scientists worldwide, I documented 65 health risks of GE foods. There are thousands of toxic or allergic-type reactions in humans, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals. Government safety assessments, including those of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), do not identify many of the dangers, and analysis reveals that industry studies submitted to FSANZ are designed to avoid finding them.

The process of inserting a foreign gene into a plant cell and cloning that cell into a GE crop produces hundreds of thousands of mutations throughout the DNA. Natural plant genes may be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds can change their function. This is why GE soy has less protein, an unexpected new allergen and up to seven times higher levels of a known soy allergen.

The only human feeding study conducted on GE foods found genes had transferred into the DNA of gut bacteria and remained functional. This means that long after we stop eating a GE food, its protein may be produced continuously inside our intestines.

Lab animals fed GM crops had altered sperm cells and embryos, a five-fold increase in infant mortality, smaller brains, and a host of other problems.

Documents made public by a lawsuit revealed that scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration warned that gene-spliced foods might lead to allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. When 25 per cent of US corn farmers planted GE varieties, corn sales to the European Union dropped by 99.4 per cent. All corn farmers suffered as prices fell by 13 to 20 per cent. In North America a growing number of doctors are prescribing a non-GE diet. Next year, the US natural food industry will remove all remaining GE ingredients.

Consumer buying pressure will likely force the entire food chain in North America to swear off GE within the next two years. Such a tipping point was achieved in Europe in April 1999. Australia should be taking notice of the response to GE foods throughout the world. It is certainly not the time to let the state bans expire.

Jeffrey M. Smith
Executive director Institute for Responsible Technology Iowa, USA

2.Press release from GM Free Cymru 28th November 2007

"GM Canola will be everywhere and that is inevitable"

In the light of the decisions in NSW and Victoria (1) to give a "green light" to the commercial growing of GM canola in those two states, one has to wonder what possible benefits to the consumer or to the farming community the two governments had in mind. No wonder that there is uproar amongst NGOs and consumer groups who have actually done some homework on GM canola and on the matter of coexistence.

Four items which are relevant to the debate in Australia:

1. GM Canola is impossible to contain

2. Contamination thresholds are not based on science

3. GM Canola spread by wild animals

4. Uncontrollable GM Canola Contamination in Japan

1. GM CANOLA IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTAIN

Comments made by Dr Jeremy Sweet, then of NIAB [and later part of EFSA] (2), at the GM Science debate held at IGER, Aberystwyth (3) on 17 March 2003.

1. .. 'people who have studied oil seed rape in seed banks have found that you get this persistence of a low level, of about 100 plants per square metre for several years. It could be up to 10 years'.

2. 'We looked at a combine harvester leaving actually a GM rape field, this was in the early days before we got too sensitive about these things. We found 6 kilos of seed in that combine harvester. It then went into a field of barley and harvested the barley, and that barley flushed out the rape seed and it all dropped into the ground. Now if you start doing that repeatedly on the farm you very rapidly start to have oil seed rape spread all around the farm and occurring in seed banks, and it becomes quite difficult to manage'.

3. 'the number of erucic acid crops has always been quite low, and usually fairly well managed and maintained in the production system. I think where the concern arises is that if oil seed rape..if GM oil seed rape becomes very widely grown, becomes say more than 20% or 30% of the area of oil seed rape, then it becomes much more difficult to manage these sorts of things. If you are just talking about a few crops here and there around the country, it is much easier to manage than if you are talking about it becoming a mainstream part of agriculture.'

4. 'we do have to accept the fact that once GM oil seed rape is commercialised it will be everywhere and that is inevitable, because conventional rape is everywhere, there is no reason why its going to behave differently from conventional rape. So once we start growing GM rape it will become as widely dispersed as conventional rape'

5. 'I think realistically it's going to be very difficult for GM oil seed rape to coexist with non-GM on the same farm'

===============================

2. CONTAMINATION THRESHOLDS ARE NOT BASED ON SCIENCE

Dr Jeremy Sweet at the same meeting (4):

Well, we have thresholds for varietal purity in seeds, so that a farmer knows that when he buys a batch of seed it's that variety and not another one and also it doesn't contain off types or dead seed or whatever. For GM seed, there was a feeling that a threshold was needed but the reason for it was in fact a political one, because the EU had decided that the product threshold would be 0.9 and if you are going to produce say oil seed rape at 0.9% you have to have seed with a considerably lower level than that to allow for the fact that contamination will occur during the growing of the crop to allow for pollen coming in and seed contamination and so on. So there was a group of us who got together in Brussels and pondered over this, and we came to the conclusion, that, in order to allow enough margin for the farmer to achieve the threshold of 0.9 we would have to set the seed threshold at about 0.3 for oil seed rape, so that allowed him effectively about 0.6 to play around with in growing his crop and that's how we achieved the threshold. Very unscientific I know but that's basically how we did it, because we were basically worked into a corner. The EU said that 'politically we will set a level at 0.9 and therefore we want scientific advice on how you can achieve that and what is required for seed.'

John Tanner, Department for International Development: It's a question for Dr. Sweet. I am intrigued that these threshold figures you talk about seem to be arbitrary, I think that's the word, I don't know if you actually used that word but they are arbitrary. You suggest also that they may be used as non-tariff barriers to trade. Do you want to make any further comment on that comment that you made?

Dr Jeremy Sweet: Well, I would draw your attention to the fact that this is a scientific meeting and therefore I couldn't possibly comment on these things, except for saying that there was no scientific foundation or basis used for the setting of what was first of all 1% and now has changed to 0.9% threshold. I mean it's not based on food safety. And it's not based on any other standards or whatever they use in certified crop production. It is based on political and sociological grounds.

=============================

3. GM CANOLA SPREAD BY WILD ANIMALS Germinable GM seeds survive in faeces

A new paper (5) has confirmed what has long been suspected -- that GM canola seed can be spread across a farming landscape by grazing wild animals such as fallow deer. The researchers (1) found that fallow deer fed on a varied diet of natural weeds and herbs, GM maize and GM canola could spread germinable GM canola seed through their faeces. It is already known that such seeds can be spread through transport on coats and hooves. Gene flow from GM canola (Brassica napus) to native relatives, such as Brassica rapa and Raphanus raphanistrum could then occur.

Although the authors argue that the transported GM canola seeds would have no enhanced fitness by comparison with wild relatives (Steward et al. 2002), they conclude that uncontrolled dispersal of GM traits is more likely with GM canola than with GM maize; and they say that this fact should be "further taken into account when liberating GM plants with a small seedling size like rape."

Quote: Our investigations on the subject of endozoochory of germinable maize seeds and rapeseed by fallow deer revealed that excreted rapeseed were able to germinate, while no intact maize seeds were detectable in faeces and rectum content. In this context, Heinken et al. (2001, 2005; Heinken and Raudnitschka 2002) reported that fallow deer transport various diasporas (seeds and fruits) in the coats and hooves (epizoochory). In fallow deer faeces, 42 vascular plant species, among them economically valuable plants, were found (Heinken et al. 2005). Despite finding no intact maize seeds in this study with fallow deer, it cannot be excluded that intact maize grains or rather intact plant material might be detected in other deer species such as red deer or moose as the efficacy of the mastication process might be influenced by other factors such as body size, developmental stage (juvenile vs adult), illness (e.g. diarrhea) or distinct species characteristics. Rapeseed is known to retain its germination capacity up to 5 years, sometimes even longer. Its germination capacity will be maintained, and development of a plant could be possible if seeds were placed in favorable environmental conditions (Pekrun et al. 1998).

======================================

4. UNCONTROLLABLE GM CANOLA CONTAMINATION IN JAPAN

Extracts from recent reports (6):

GM canola pollution is much more widespread than expected.

According to this year's findings, GM canola found near to an oil extraction factory in Chiba prefecture was tolerant to both Roundup and Basta. As there is no GM canola variety currently available which has transgenes for both types of herbicide tolerance, this GM canola must have been crossed at a seed or cultivation stage, or possibly at the spot where it was spilled.

Another finding, according to surveys conducted by a team lead by Professor Masaharu Kawata (Yokkaichi University) in Mie prefecture between 2005 and 2007, is that GM canola is becoming perennial. It is not common for canola to be biennial due to the cold Canadian winters, but in the warmer winters in Japan, canola can survive for several years and became like a bushy tree, and pollen from GM canola then continues to spread year after year. Thus, the environmental impact caused by spilled GM canola seeds is potentially very serious in Japan.

According to Professor Kawata, "There are leaf mustard and conventional rapeseed growing around the spilled GM canola plants, so it is only a matter of time before they are crossed and contaminated by GMOs. Also, some other cruciferous vegetables like Japanese radish and Chinese cabbage are in danger of GM contamination."

Keisuke Amagasa of NO! GMO Campaign notes that, "Japan does not produce any GM crops. However, because Japan imports GM canola from Canada, GM contamination has already occurred and it is spreading to a much greater degree than one could imagine. If GM crops are cultivated, then this kind of pollution will spread even more. Judging by the ominous precedent of Canada, once GM crops are cultivated, segregation between GM and non-GM will become almost impossible, and keeping pure non-GM varieties away from GM contamination will be very hard. The clear conclusion from the findings is that cultivating or importing GM crops, leads to GM pollution and once this pollution begins, it can cause irreversible damage."

=====================

NOTES

(1) GM canola gets the go-ahead in NSW and Victoria http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/GM-canola-gets-goahea...

see also http://www.bfa.com.au/_files/VIC%20BFA%20Submission%20-%...
(2) Jeremy Sweet is now Vice Chair EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/Member_WG/gmo_cv2006_sweet,0.pdf

He lists his experience in risk assessment and scientific research as follows: * Research on monitoring, gene flow and environmental impact for UK Government * Co-ordinator EC SIGMEA Project studying impacts of GM crops and coexistence. * Chairman, Steering Committee of the European Science Foundation project on Assessing the Environmental Impact of GM Crops (AIGM) * Member BBSRC Steering Committee on Gene Flow in GMOs programme. * Member Prime Minister's Strategy Unit on Costs and benefits of GMOs. * Co-existence: Participant in COEXTRA, EC/IPTS study and EC Round Table.

(3) Sweet's full statement is on pages 16 -26 at http://www.gmsciencedebate.org.uk/meetings/pdf/170303-tra...

(4) http://www.gmsciencedebate.org.uk/meetings/pdf/170303-tra...

(5) Reference:

P. Guertler, B. Lutz, R. Kuehn, H. H. D. Meyer, R. Einspanier, B. Killermann and C. Albrecht, 2007, "Fate of recombinant DNA and Cry1Ab protein after ingestion and dispersal of genetically modified maize in comparison to rapeseed by fallow deer ( Dama dama )", European Journal of Wildlife Research Received: 8 February 2007 / Revised: 11 April 2007 / Accepted: 11 April 2007http://www.springerlink.com/content/g8463t7n5424x888/

(6) Spilled GM canola keeps on contaminating http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8179

Spilled GM Canola Growing in Japan - Citizens' Survey Results 2007

2007. Copyright Environmental News Network

Convenience may be causing people to get sick

It has been many years sicne I started on a campaign to educate the public about risks of EMF. It is always a welme event to find more and more information on the risks to health brought out in the mainstream press.

Reading this article also just might make you contact your members of Congress and tell them to stop rewarding phone companies for warrantless wire-tapping and spying.

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a growing health concern
November 27, 2007

by MARIA TZAVARAS

Modern technology makes our lives convenient and efficient, but is it also making us sick?

Electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, are all around us, emitted from items in our home, work and outside environments. Whether it's outside power lines, home electrical wiring or appliances big and small, if it uses electricity, it's giving off EMFs.

That being said, it's inevitable we are all going to be exposed to EMFs so the question becomes what exactly does that mean for our health?

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a growing health concern and, according to Dr. Howard Fisher, a Toronto chiropractor and author of The Invisible Threat, The Risks Associated with EMFs, it can be attributed to several health disorders.

Studies have confirmed these disorders include fatigue, sleep disturbances, loss of mental attention, headaches, depression, heart palpitations, memory problems and burning and tingling sensations in the head and extremities.

Fisher also said EMFs have been proven to have effects on neurological tissues, contributing to nerve degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.

Whether it causes or simply exacerbates symptoms, Fisher said he can't say, but if this is true, why hasn't the public heard more about it?

Health Canada, while recognizing EMFs exist, said it does not feel they negatively impact the health of Canadians.

"Health Canada has no scientific reason to consider the use of wireless communications devices, such as cellphones, BlackBerries, wireless laptop computers and their supporting infrastructure, (are) dangerous to the health of the Canadian public," said the official statement from the health organization. "The World Health Organization has recently confirmed this as well."

Renee Bergeron, media relations officer for Health Canada, said she gets calls on a weekly basis from concerned citizens regarding electromagnetic sensitivities, mainly regarding cellphones.

Currently Bergeron said there's no concrete scientific evidence to back up those concerns.

"We have a whole team of people working in the radiation protection program area; that's what they do," she said.

However, Fisher said he strongly believes in the negative health effects attributed to EMFs and has known about it since the early '80s.

Kevin Byrne, a former sufferer, also said the effects are real.

Three years ago, Byrne moved into a house and did renovations, including installing new lighting complete with 15 compact fluorescent lights and three dimmer switches. Over the next few months, Byrne noticed he was feeling overall unwellness.

"I developed arthritic-like pain. I was very sore and my joints hurt, especially my hips, and I wasn't sleeping well," he said.

He went to the doctor for a checkup, but everything was normal. It wasn't until he was visiting a neighbour, an environmental engineer, that there was some light shed on his situation.

The neighbour was using a Stetzer meter, developed to measure dirty electricity.

Dirty electricity is caused by energy-saving devices such as power bars and compact fluorescent light bulbs. To achieve the lower voltage, electricity is chopped up, allowing it to move slower and achieve energy efficiency. As a result, electricity spews outward and goes back through the wiring in your home, contaminating everything that is plugged in.

After Byrne took to the meter home to his house, he found high levels of dirty electricity.

"Your electricity, when it's clean, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, but when it's contaminated ... it's got radiation spewing off of it," Byrne said.

Historically, Fisher said people have been aware of the effects of EMFs since the 1950s. However, it remains a controversial topic with many unknowns.

"What the medical world isn't aware of we don't know how much of the symptoms that they see in practice on a regular basis is due to electromagnetic field effects or actual pathologies," Fisher said.

That being said, other countries such as Sweden and Australia recognize this; so why not Canada?

"When you test anything, like drugs, products or whatever, sometimes you have to look at how big the studies are, how long did they test them for, what are the variables, so we have to accumulate a lot of studies and we have to see a pattern before we can verify it," Bergeron said.

Visit www.dirtyelectricity.ca to learn more about how you can avoid EMF exposure.

Off Target in the War on Cancer

Dr. Davis makes some very good points and is one of the continuing line of people, like me for example, fighting to expose the truths about cancer. I do not agree with some of her views however, for the most part, what she says should be heeded.

By Devra Davis

We've been fighting the war on cancer for almost four decades now, since President Richard M. Nixon officially launched it in 1971. It's time to admit that our efforts have often targeted the wrong enemies and used the wrong weapons.

Throughout the industrial world, the war on cancer remains focused on commercially fueled efforts to develop drugs and technologies that can find and treat the disease -- to the tune of more than $100 billion a year in the United States alone. Meanwhile, the struggle basically ignores most of the things known to cause cancer, such as tobacco, radiation, sunlight, benzene, asbestos, solvents, and some drugs and hormones. Even now, modern cancer-causing agents such as gasoline exhaust, pesticides and other air pollutants are simply deemed the inevitable price of progress.

They're not. Scientists understand that most cancer is not born but made. Although identical twins start life with amazingly similar genetic material, as adults they do not develop the same cancers. As with most of us, where they live and work and the habits that they develop do more to determine their health than their genes do. Americans in their 20s today carry around in their bodies levels of some chemicals that can impair their ability to produce healthy children -- and increase the chances that those children will develop cancer.

Consider the icon of American cancer, the cyclist Lance Armstrong. He's hardly alone as an inspiring younger survivor. Of the 10 million American cancer survivors who are alive five years after their diagnosis, about one in 10 is younger than 40. Could exposure to radiation and obesity-promoting chemicals help explain why, according to a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the rates of the testicular cancer that Armstrong developed nearly doubled in most industrialized countries in the past three decades? Should we wait to find out?

I'm calling for prudence and prevention, not panic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Working Group have confirmed that American children are being born with dozens of chemicals in their bodies that did not exist just two decades earlier, including toxic flame retardants from fabrics. A new study by Barbara Cohn and other scientists at the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, Calif., finds that girls exposed to elevated levels of the pesticide DDT before age 14 are five times more likely to develop breast cancer when they reach middle age.

Yes, the war has had some important successes: Cancer deaths in the United States are finally dropping, chiefly because of badly belated (and still poorly supported) efforts to curb smoking, reductions in the levels of some pollutants and significant advances in the control of cancers of the breast, colon, prostate and cervix. But new cases of cancer not linked to smoking or aging are on the rise, such as cancer in children and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in people older than 55. And according to the CDC, cancer is the No. 2 cause of death for children and middle-age people, second only to accidents. The longer view is troubling: The National Cancer Institute reports that from 1950 to 2001, the number of cancers of the bone marrow, the bladder and the liver doubled.

Both public health and social justice demand that we focus more on the things that cause cancer. For example, blacks and other minorities still die of many forms of cancer more often than do whites. Could this be tied to the fact that so many African Americans hold blue-collar jobs, which may bring them into contact with carcinogens? Or because poor blacks are more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods, or eat diets higher in cancer-causing fats? We can't say, and we're not even trying to find out. The vast cancer-fighting enterprise has decidedly different priorities.

Even our triumphs in battling cancer can leave us with tragic shortcomings. Consider one irony of oncology: Many of the agents that can so effectively rout cancer early in life, such as chemotherapy and radiation, can also increase the risks of falling prey to other forms of the disease later on. According to a study in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, one out of every three girls treated with radiation before age 16 to arrest Hodgkin's disease -- a cancer of the lymphatic system that often occurs in young people -- will develop breast cancer by age 40. Of course, many cancers in children and young adults might have been avoided in the first place without earlier exposure to cancer-causing agents.

We also need to weigh the downsides of the way we use radiation today to find problems in the healthy public, especially the young. A consensus statement from the American College of Radiology notes that "the current annual collective dose estimate from medical exposure in the United States has been calculated as roughly equivalent to the total worldwide collective dose generated by the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl."

Most parents (and many emergency-medicine physicians) don't know that a single CT scan of a child's head can deliver the same radioactive dose as that in 200 to 6,000 chest X-rays. Some pediatric experts recommend that CT scans of children be restricted to medical emergencies and kept at doses as low as reasonably possible. Even so, according to the American College of Radiology, the use of CT scans has jumped tenfold in the past decade -- a change that stems from the profitability and growth of "defensive medicine," and one that has not resulted in any improvement in our overall health that I can discern.

The Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency often lack the authority and resources to monitor and control tobacco smoke, asbestos, tanning salons and the cancer-causing agents in food, water and the everyday products we use on our bodies and in our homes. Under antiquated laws, chemical and radiation hazards are examined one at a time, if at all. Of the nearly 80,000 chemicals regularly bought and sold today, according to the National Academy of Sciences, fewer than 10 percent have been tested for their capacity to cause cancer or do other damage.

As a result of these policy failures, the United States often stands alone -- and not in a good way. Unlike Italy, Ireland, France, Albania, Argentina, Uruguay and many other countries, the United States has failed to ban smoking in public spaces nationwide. Unlike European children, American kids are exposed to small levels of known carcinogens in their food, air, shampoos, bubble baths and skin creams -- such as the clear, colorless liquid known as "1, 4-dioxane," a common contaminant that causes cancer in animals and has been banned from cosmetics by the European Union.

In fact, our growing dependence on many unstudied modern conveniences makes us the subjects of vast, uncontrolled experiments to which none of us ever consents. Consider cellphones, whose long-term health consequences could prove disastrous. Experimental findings show that cellphone radiation damages living cells and can penetrate the skull. Widely publicized research on cellphone use in the early 1990s indicates that the phones are safe, but those studies did not include any children and excluded all business users. While exposure levels are much lower on newer phones, the effects of gadgets that have increasingly become part of our children's lives remain unstudied.

That's unwise. Recent reports from Sweden and France, published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, reveal that adults who have used cellphones for 10 years or more have twice as much brain cancer on the side of their heads most frequently exposed to the phone. The Swiss and Chinese governments have set official exposure limits for cellphone microwave emissions that are 500 times lower than those the United States mandates. In Bangalore, India, it is illegal to sell a cellphone to a child younger than 16. As a basic precaution, people should use the phones with earpieces or speakers, and young children should not use them at all -- consistent with warnings recently issued by the German and British governments. Because brain cancer can take 10 years or longer to develop, national statistics cannot be expected to show the health impact of today's skyrocketing cellphone use. But we shouldn't wait for the cases to roll in before acting.

True, there are many uncertainties about environmental cancer hazards. But these doubts should not be confused with proof that environmental factors are harmless. The confusion arises for three different reasons. First, studying the ways that our surroundings affect our cancers is genuinely hard. Second, public and private funding levels for research and control of environmental cancer are scandalously low. Finally, those who profit from the continued use of some risky technologies have devised well-financed efforts to sow doubt about many modern hazards, taking their cue from the machinations of the tobacco industry. The best crafted public relations campaigns masquerade as independent scientific information from unimpeachable authorities.

No matter how much our efforts to treat cancer may advance, the best way to reduce cancer's toll is to keep people from getting it. We need to join the rest of the industrialized world by issuing a national ban on asbestos and forbidding smoking in the workplace and other public spaces. We must reduce the hazards faced by those working to build our homes, transport our goods and make the products we consume. We should restrict CT scans of children to medical emergencies, limit the use of diagnostic radiation in general, ban young children from using cellphones and keep the rest of us from using tanning beds. And we must recognize that pollutants do not need passports. Controlling cancer, like controlling global warming, can take place only on an international scale. We can -- and must -- do better.

Devra Davis, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, directs the Center for Environmental Oncology. Her most recent book is "The Secret Historyof the War on Cancer."