Saturday, January 7, 2012

The secrets hidden in the pyramids of Egypt (Harun Yahya)

The secrets hidden in the pyramids of Egypt (Harun Yahya)

Occupy Religion: Don’t Let Religion Occupy You

Jan. 1: 2012 Occupy Religion: Don’t Let Religion Occupy You by Liam Fox

Religion, and religious institutions, are not only granted undeserved credit for their role in social movements, but are also not afforded the responsibility they deserve for the damage they inflict to the movements they infect, and the communities represented by those movements. Christians are all too ready to yell about the involvement of Islamic organizations in the Arab Spring, yet, as Occupy Churches spring up in American tent cities, and Occupy Faith groups begin to flourish, they turn a blind eye to the history of hierarchy, misogyny, and homophobia that has plagued revolutionary communities from the early European protestants, to the nationalist Irish under British rule, and the African-American community civil rights movement.

Religions are, by their nature, hierarchical. They worship a godhead and follow the rules ordained purportedly by that godhead. They do not arrive at decisions through consensus. They cannot. They must obey the rules and dictates of the godhead, and, at most, allow that a select group of god experts interpret those rules and dictates. Believers, adherents, and followers, do not have a say in what the teachings of the godhead are. The Occupy Movement is not only leaderless, but, by extension of that, be ‘followerless’ as well.

If any think that the Democratic Party, or MoveOn.org, or large corporate/political/bureaucratic unions are the biggest threats of co-option, they are completely missing what is being allowed to happen right under their nose.

Religion, and religious institutions, represent the greatest threat to the Occupy Movement. Religious leaders, such as priests, ministers, clerics, clergy, and acolytes et al, exert their leadership by claiming to be fellow followers of an invisible, silent entity that speaks and communicates through them. They refuse to admit that their godhead is nothing more than a construct of humans, that they exploit, and they fail to explain why their interpretations of the teachings of their supposed singular godhead has as many variations as their are religious leaders.

The advent of interfaith ceremonies and activities clearly demonstrates this hypocrisy. The all knowing god, that has always been, and always shall be, has either been on a pretty steep learning curve for the past few hundred years or is a human construct that directly reflects the attitudes of the believers and the society they live in. Supposed adherents to religions, whose holy scriptures claim that their god is the only true god, and that all other religions must be shunned, and whose followers must be either converted or killed, should not be praying together. Not unless they have the authority to change what their godhead teaches, and demands, through the holy scriptures that claim this to be an offense punishable by death.

Religions are still denying equal rights to women, homosexuals, and any that do not adhere to their doctrines and dogmas. Is this what the Occupy Movement stands for? Why are religions being given a carte blanche where others are vigorously denied. Why are sermons and teachings being allowed that tell Occupiers what they must do rather than make proposals to Occupiers, open those proposals up to critical, clarifying questions, allow themselves to accept friendly amendments, and then seek consensus or be blocked because they violate the fundamental values of the movement?

I was at a gathering of occupiers where speeches were being given by representatives from a variety of community groups. A representative from a Native American group stood and explained that their community’s spiritual tradition demands a hierarchical structure because their prophecies claim that the four different colors of peoples on the planet would each find their own way, and, that for Native American people, people that share their color, a hierarchical structure was their way. The group sat silent, most nodded approvingly and thanked the speaker for their wonderful offering. No one challenged the assertion.

What? Hierarchy, segregation, division, and separation… all OK because it’s framed as spiritual, prophetic, and part of someone’s religious belief. Our societal conditioning does not allow us to challenge even the most egregious violations of our values when they are framed in such terms, apparently.

Religions claim that many movements have come out of their institutions and congregations. The truth is: In Ireland, as in America from the time of restoration through the civil rights movement, churches and religious institutions were simply the only community spaces where activists could organize. The movements occupied the churches out of necessity. They didn’t see the danger, as we’ve all been programmed not to, with religion.

Now, they as communities, and their movements seeking emancipation, have suffered as a result.

Religions have a prolific history of being just chameleon-like enough to infiltrate entire communities and cultures, adopt their lingo, appropriate their practices and traditions, and then completely usurp and control them. This cannot be allowed with the Occupy Movement. This must be aggressively resisted.

Religion should not be Occupying the Occupy Movement. Intolerance cannot be tolerated, regardless of how it is dressed up and justified. The Occupy Movement should only be occupying religions as a means of dismantling their destructive and divisive influence over our society and politics, equal to, or greater than, any corporation or financial institution, and introducing the unconditionally equal, personal empowerment of direct democracy and consensus building. Amen.

Food & Farm Hero: John Kinsman Interview

Food & Farm Hero: John Kinsman Interview

The Center for Media and Democracy's Food Rights Network hears from John Kinsman, local dairy farmer and co-founder of the Family Farm Defenders, on the rocky pastures of his farm, his history of activism since the early 1970s and his work for food sovereignty at home and abroad.

For an introductory article, see http://www.foodrightsnetwork.org/2011/10/food-rights-network-interviews-food-... .

For a transcript, see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Kinsman_Interview .

Related:

Why You Should Eat More (not less) Cholesterol

Friday, January 6, 2012

7 Reasons America's Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity

7 Reasons America's Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity by Bruce E. Levine

Drug industry corruption, scientifically unreliable diagnoses and pseudoscientific research have compromised the values of the psychiatric profession.

Why do some of us become dissident mental health professionals?

The majority of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals “go along to get along” and maintain a status quo that includes drug company corruption, pseudoscientific research and a “standard of care” that is routinely damaging and occasionally kills young children. If that sounds hyperbolic, then you probably have not heard of Rebecca Riley, and how the highest levels of psychiatry described her treatment as “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage.

By the time Rebecca was three years old, again based mainly on parental complaints, Kifuji had given Rebecca an additional diagnosis of bipolar disorder and prescribed two additional heavily sedating drugs, the antipsychotic Seroquel and the anticonvulsant Depakote.

At the age of four, Rebecca was dead.

Read complete article..

200 Reasons To Love Vitamin C

200 Reasons To Love Vitamin C by Sayer Ji

Vitamin C is generally considered to be an important "nutrient," but its perceived value usually ends there. Only rarely does the public (and the medical profession) glimpse its true potential in the prevention and treatment of disease -- and this because, by legal definition (in the US), only FDA-approved drugs can prevent, treat and cure disease.

This does not mean, however, that essential nutrients like Vitamin C cannot in fact prevent and treat disease, i.e. only because it is illegal to speak truthfully about something, doesn't mean that that something isn't true. The National Library of Medicine, in fact, contains thousands of studies demonstrating vitamin C's ability to significantly improve health, with 220 disease applications documented on the research site GreenMedInfo.com alone. The best thing 'we the people' can do, despite our lack of medical degrees and licensure, and without the FDA's iron-fisted legal and regulatory apparatus on our side, is to use the peer-reviewed research at our disposal to inform and protect our treatment decisions.

Perhaps we must revisit an important moment in history to regain a sense of how profoundly vitamin C deficiency and vitamin C therapy can affect health. James Lind (1716-1794), pioneer of naval hygiene in the British Royal Navy, conducted the first ever clinical trial proving that citrus fruits cured scurvy. Lind's discovery saved tens of thousands of seamen from the ravages of scurvy, spurring England's naval supremacy, putatively changing the course of world history.

If significant historical events like these don't provide enough evidence to vindicate the efficacy of nutrients like Vitamin C, molecular biology and the science of genetics can help to fill in the gaps.

It is a little known and under-appreciated fact that all humans are born with a serious, life-threatening genetic defect: namely, the inability to manufacture Vitamin C.

Read complete article..

Antidepressants Cause Your Arteries to Thicken 400% More Than Aging

Antidepressants Cause Your Arteries to Thicken 400% More Than Aging by Mike Barrett

Depression may be the worst emotional experience there is. The causes are many, and it often drives people to zig-zag past everything that matters and into a pill bottle of pharmaceutical ‘treatments’. But these solutions offered by the pharmaceutical industry are nothing but a sham, and their antidepressant products only make you more depressed and trigger suicidal thoughts. One study has also found that antidepressants cause your arteries to thicken 400% more than aging – a main factor in the thickening of the arteries.

Antidepressants Linked to Heart Disease and Stroke

A study conducted by the Emory University School of Medicine included over 500 middle-aged male twins, both who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The researchers noted that among 59 pairs of twins where only one brother was on antidepressants, the one ingesting the drugs usually had higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) – the thickness of main arteries in the neck.

“One of the strongest and best-studied factors that thickens someone’s arteries is age, and that happens at around 10 microns per year…In our study, users of antidepressants see an average 40 micron increase in IMT, so their carotid arteries are in effect four years older,” says the first study author Amit Shah, MD.

The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac. Researchers found that participants who used SSRIs, which were 60 percent of those taking antidepressants, had higher carotid IMT. This may be due to the effects antidepressants have on serotonin levels, which is a chemical in your body that helps some brain cells communicate.

These findings are just one more thing to add to the long list of why people shouldn’t be taking many harmful pharmaceuticals. More than 1 in 10 Americans are on these suicide-linked antidepressants even though they do not work and only make the problem worse. Instead of resorting to these pharmaceuticals, try supplementing with vitamin D, as it has been shown to defeat depression naturally. It is also key to de-stress the brain, as depression is always cultivated from stress-related aspects of your life.

Comment: It is amazing that so many people have fallen for this profit scam, the idea that your brain and everything that it thinks about has no control over itself. A symptom must be recognized for what it is by addressing all the things that life may offer in all forms. That being said, the world around us is extremely disordered and dying mostly. That fact alone would cause one to begin to withdraw, a sign that the data coming in must be restricted and turned on its head and revealed for what it is. The body also reads all the data that is consumed which may also show symptoms that add to the disorientation of thinking. Depression itself is not real, only the symptom is real which is a sign, a message to be learned. The word "symptom," reveals the truth defined as the "falling sun." To assume that signs are malfunctions is a malfunction itself. A pill is not a sign, but in placebo trials they become them as the symptom is adjudicated to the solution made. The actual solution is truth which in itself has power to heal.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Occupy London: Where it headed?-INfocus-01-04-2012

Occupy London: Where it headed?-INfocus-01-04-2012 - Press TV

The occupy London stock exchange movement has expanded. It is in different sites across the city and has joined-up with the massive student demos.

We have documented the protest from the first day, and have seen it grow and merge in to the wider demonstrations.

In this edition of the show we go among the protesters in Occupy London movement and try to find out what will be the next step for the movement.

Herbal Medicine: Can Natural Remedies Really See Off Winter Colds and Flu?

Herbal Medicine: Can Natural Remedies Really See Off Winter Colds and Flu? by Sophie Laggan

Although controversial amongst advocates of mainstream medicine, herbs and spices can help keep us healthy, says Sophie Laggan

The common cold results in a stuffy nose, sore throat and husky voice along the lines of Barry White's. The symptoms aren't the least bit attractive and leave you feeling decidedly woeful. Although not directly caused by the drop in temperature, the increased use of public transport during the winter helps to spread the virus, which makes it pretty hard to avoid. So how can you boost your immune system and fend off colds this winter, without resorting to pharmaceuticals?

Along with reducing sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, swap defence-diminishing coffee for immune boosting green tea. Getting a good night's sleep helps the body repair and drinking warm water and lemon on a daily basis creates an alkaline environment where bacteria and fungus can't replicate themselves. But the key to preventing a cold is to maintain a healthy immune system through diet and lifestyle choices. Herbal supplements have also been shown to have significant immune boosting properties and unlike over the counter medication, they actively combat infection and don't simply suppress symptoms. 'The medicine we usually buy can in fact tax the body and its detoxification pathways thus prolonging your condition,' says UnBEElievable Health nutritional therapist, Erin McCann.

Labeling is still very unclear on most medication and although many Western drugs have their origins in herbal extracts, most are now made with synthetic alternatives. But can herbal remedies really see off the flu? The technical term is 'phytotherapy' - Greek for 'plant care' - and can include anything from eating more garlic to using a mustard poultice. Here are some to try:

Elderflower: Can help relieve colds and influenza, along with catarrh of the upper respiratory tract. It is traditionally used for feverish conditions. Combined with peppermint and yarrow, it works best as an infusion.
Echinacea: Boasting anti-microbial properties that can help fight infection anywhere in the body, its one of the most widely used natural remedies.
Horseradish: Increases blood flow to the skin and all tissues; helping to relieve chilblains. It has anti-microbial properties and can help reduce the intensity of flu.
Mustard: Combats feverishness, cold and flu and can be made into a tea, if you can handle the taste, or the powder can sprinkled onto food.
Cinnamon: Has antimicrobial properties and has been in use since the Middle Ages. Often used in mainstream medicine in sore throat and cough remedies.
Sage: Herbalist Jackie Day recommends mixing an infusion of sage leaves (one teaspoon dried herb to a mug of boiling water), with some honey and a cider vinegar to create an effective gargle for sore throats.

Leafy vegetables: Brussel sprouts might be the marmite of the vegetable kingdom but they contain zinc and antioxidants that support immune cell function.
Garlic: Its volatile oil has expectorant properties that help promote a productive cough, and have a disinfectant effect on the lungs and bronchi. Considered to be one of the most effective anti-microbial plants.

GlaxoSmithKline Fined Over Illegal Vaccine Experiments Killing 14 Babies

GlaxoSmithKline Fined Over Illegal Vaccine Experiments Killing 14 Babies by Anthony Gucciardi

Vaccine and drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been fined 400,000 pesos (around the equivalent of $93,000) by an Argentinian judge for killing 14 babies during illegal lab vaccine trials that were conducted between 2007 and 2008. In addition to killing the children and experimenting with human beings, the judge asserted that the corporation actually falsified parental authorizations so that babies could participate without legitimate parental permission.

Judge Marcelo Aguinsky made the decision after a report was released on the subject by the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Technology (ANMAT in Spanish). Since 2007, 15,000 children below the age of one from Mendoza, San Juan, and Santiago del Estero have been participating in the illegal research. These babies were recruited by GSK from poor families that attended public hospitals. It was found that of the 14 baby deaths, 7 died in Santiago del Estero; 5 in Mendoza; and 2 in San Juan.

GSK Recruited Doctors, Pressured Illiterate Parents into Signing Over Children

Currently, it is unknown how many babies suffered serious side effects, adverse reactions, or if this is truly the total death count. As with many other vaccinations such as Gardasil, the official death count continues to rise as leaked reports from the FDA and elsewhere continue to surface.

One pediatrician working at the public hospital when GSK began recruiting babies for their illegal human trials said that not only did GSK force illiterate parents into handing over their children, but they also ‘recruited’ several doctors working at the hospital into their cause.

Ana Marchese, a pediatrician at the Eva Perón children’s public hospital in Santiago del Estero, stated:

“GSK Argentina set an protocol at the hospital, and recruited several doctors working there. These doctors took advantage of many illiterate parents whom take their children for treatment by pressuring and forcing them into signing these 28-page consent forms and getting them involved in the trials.”

It is quite clear that GSK has zero regard for human health, morals, and will go to any length to experiment with their latest jab regardless of the casualties. Of the 15,000 babies that were reported to be a part of the illegal trials, many may suffer from life-altering illness and serious side effects. Amazingly, many parents had no idea they were signing over the lives of their children to GSK, as they were completely illiterate. Meanwhile, GSK sells their latest shots and pharmaceutical drugs to United States consumers, raking in record profits each year as the second-largest drugmaker.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Wholesale Approval of Genetically Engineered Foods

Wholesale Approval of Genetically Engineered Foods by Mark Kastel

Obama Administration Disappoints/Angers Public: Agent Orange Herbicide Ingredient Would be Widely Used in Agriculture

WISCONSIN - Over the holidays, the United States Department of Agriculture announced its approval of a novel strain of genetically engineered corn, developed by Monsanto, purportedly being “drought tolerant.”

Despite receiving nearly 45,000 public comments in opposition to this particular genetically engineered (GE) corn variety (and only 23 comments in favor), the Obama administration gave Monsanto the green light to release its newest GE corn variety freely into the environment and American food supply, without any governmental oversight or safety tracking.

“President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack just sent a clear message to the American public that they do not care about our concerns with genetically engineered food and their questionable safety, adverse environmental impacts, and detrimental effects on farmers, especially organic farmers,” says Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst with The Cornucopia Institute.

“This is just the latest in a string of approvals of genetically engineered crops, and it is clear that despite campaign promises of change from Obama, he has not had the courage to stand strong against the powerful agribusiness and biotechnology lobbies,” Kastel added.

Read complete article..

Every Good Doctor Must Represent the Patient: The Malfunction of Evidence-Based Medicine

Every Good Doctor Must Represent the Patient: The Malfunction of Evidence-Based Medicine by Daniel L. Scholten

What follows is an innovative new paper that we feel deserves publication. We concede that this article is a stretch for OMNS in both size and content. However, the nonstandard but thought-provoking aspects of this work need to be presented and we choose to let our readers read or delete. - Andrew W. Saul, OMNS Editor.

As part of their recent OMNS critique of the practice of "evidence-based" medicine (EBM) (1), researchers Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts argue that the legalistic requirements of EBM, such as its insistence on treatments that have met the "gold standard" of "well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials", actually prevent doctors from effectively diagnosing and treating their patients. In this article, I would like to elaborate on this part of their argument, which they warrant with a piece of cybernetic common-sense (2) known variously as the "Good-Regulator" theorem (GRT), or "Conant and Ashby" theorem, after the researchers who published its original proof. (3)

No need to worry about the technical jargon. If you can read these words then you have already understood something important about this result from the system sciences, even if you don't call it that. (4) Likewise, if you have ever used a street map to navigate a new city, a book index to browse the contents of a book, or perhaps an x-ray image or lab report to diagnose a patient's ailment, then you are already quite comfortable handling at least the gist of this conceptual power-tool, which can be paraphrased as follows: every good solution to a problem must be a representation of that problem. (5)

What's It All about?

Here are several other ways to paraphrase the theorem:

Every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system.
Every good key must be a model of the lock it opens. (6)
Control implies resemblance.
Identical situations imply identical responses.

The basic idea of the theorem can be illustrated with simple thought experiments. (7) Just imagine trying to order a meal in a new restaurant without using a menu, or assemble a piece of furniture without an instruction pamphlet, or diagnose diabetes without a blood-sugar lab report. Of course, you could probably muddle your way through any number of situations with roughly the same basic set of skills that was available to our preliterate ancestors, but the unassailable fact of the matter is that maps, menus, x-ray images, and medical lab reports are potent performance enhancers and without them we risk getting lost, going hungry, or medically misdiagnosing. (8,9)

Why is There a Problem?

The truth of this can be easily obscured. One problem is that some representations are clearly better than others. At the extreme we have outdated maps, poorly written instruction pamphlets and menus with mouthwatering images that turn out to represent bland, salty, or greasy food. Another problem is that representations - from street-maps to MRI scans - can be costly to prepare. Furthermore, the expertise required to prepare or use them is costly to acquire, as measured by the years, dollars, and brain-sweat it takes to complete one's formal education. The upshot here is that those paying the costs of such representations might reasonably wonder whether those costs outweigh the benefits. Perhaps there is a cheaper way to enhance the performance of our system regulators, to find "good solutions" to our problems, and "good keys" to fit the locks we wish to open.

One common work-around is to rely on a memorized "mental model." Although this approach works fine for simple tasks, such as a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up extra milk, as soon as a task becomes even moderately complex, the limitations of working-memory (10) quickly render this approach useless, little better than using no representation at all. Another approach is to simply avoid the sorts of complex behavior that require us to use external representations. In the end, we must all rely heavily on this approach, if for no other reason than because the cost, time and effort required to learn how to use, say, ultrasound imaging equipment, necessarily blocks one from simultaneously learning to use, say, actuarial modeling techniques, or perhaps the Hubble Space telescope. To choose is to renounce. But this approach also has its limits and the total avoidance of such complex behaviors - perhaps due to illiteracy, innumeracy or maybe a deliberate decision to return to a preliterate hunter-gatherer way of life - is just a different sort of burden.

Yet a third way to dodge expensive models or modeling expertise is to look for "multipurpose" representations; for instance, generalized maps, menus, and user-guides, that can be reused for many different cities, restaurants, and types of equipment. (11) According to Hickey and Roberts, this third approach is actually the one that Evidence Based Medicine advocates.

One Key Cannot Fit All Locks

They illustrate their argument with the above-mentioned lock-and-key paraphrase of the Good-Regulator theorem. To follow it, we start by making the analogy that a given patient's symptoms are a a "lock" the doctor hopes to "open." It follows then, by the Good-Regulator theorem, that the doctor's diagnostic and therapeutic behaviors must "model" (represent) these symptoms. A critical qualification to be added, however, is that the doctor must model these symptoms as they occur within the specific context of the patient's genotypically and phenotypically "characteristic anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry." (12)

Of course, this does not mean that the doctor must perform some outlandish Jim Carey-esque caricature of the patient, perhaps donning the patient's same clothing, hairstyle, speech patterns, behavioral mannerisms, etc. Rather, it means that the associations that arise between the doctor's diagnostic and therapeutic responses and the patient's symptoms must be characterized by the same sort of conventional reliability that holds between the splashes of color on, for example, a map of Manhattan and the real streets, parks, and buildings in the actual city of Manhattan.

If that splash only occasionally represented Lincoln Center - or if it sometimes represented Central Park, and sometimes, say, the South Street Seaport - you would surely be confused. Even though one could use the same given splash on a map to represent two or more real-world landmarks, common-sense and strong cultural conventions require each given color splash to reliably represent just one particular real-world location. As established by Conant and Ashby's Good-Regulator Theorem, a doctor's responses must have the same sort of reliable association to a given patient's symptoms. This reliability allows us to construe the doctor's responses as a representation or model of the patient's symptoms. (13) "Evidence-based" medicine (EBM), with its insistence on treatments that have been confirmed by "well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials" (14) will almost always cripple a doctor's ability to model symptoms as they actually occur within the anatomically, physiologically, and biochemically specific context of a given patient. By way of analogy, we might consider a whimsically allegorical "evidence-based locksmith" (EBL) attempting to open a particular lock with the latest and greatest "Whiz-Bang EBL Master Key," recently developed in accord with results determined by a meta-analysis of hundreds of "well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials." Those trials have determined the absolute critical attributes of the perfectly average key, and the patently absurd claim is that the Whiz-Bang Master Key, by virtue of its perfectly average attributes, can now be used to open any particular lock.

Pretty silly, isn't it.

Clearly such a perfectly average key would open very few locks, if any. To reason otherwise is to commit the "ecological fallacy," which Hickey and Roberts summarize as "the assumption that a population value...can be applied to a specific individual." (15) If one tries to shove such a key into some particular lock, twisting and pulling in an effort to force it, then that violates the Good-Regulator Theorem, which reminds us that a good key must actually fit the lock it's supposed to open, not some other lock, and especially not some hypothetical perfectly average lock. The same goes for actual medical practice.

Evidence Based Medicine Stops Doctors from Effective Practice

We still need scientific research and the data it presents. Representations are potent performance enhancers. Just imagine what our lives would be like without grocery lists, the periodic table of the elements, and ultrasound imaging techniques. But however obvious and abundant the evidence might be, medical judgment is impaired by an apparent lapse of common sense. The practice of EBM may well be a consequence of the legal system and pharmaceutical corporate bottom line. In other words, money.

But whatever the cause of such impairment, the limitations of real people, real illnesses and real doctors point to the reality that EBM is DOA. The patient is not a statistic. The treatment should not be a statistic. Every good doctor must represent the patient. Personally.

About the author

Daniel L. Scholten has a degree in mathematical sciences and over 12 years of information technology experience as programmer, analyst and consultant. He founded the The Good-Regulator Project, an independent, volunteer research effort dedicated to increasing public awareness and understanding of the crucial role played by models and representations in the regulation of complex systems.

Notes & Reference

Hickey, Steve and Roberts, Hilary, Tarnished Gold: The Sickness of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2011, CreateSpace.
A more complete list of "mostly self-evident" cybernetic principles, including the Good-Regulator theorem, have been compiled by Francis Heylighen. See "Principles of Systems and Cybernetics: An Evolutionary Perspective", available on-line here.

In his paper, Heylighen distinguishes between Conant and Ashby's "Good-Regulator Theorem" and a "Law of Requisite Knowledge", which states that "In order to adequately compensate perturbations, a control system must 'know' which action to select from the variety of available actions." Note that although Heylighen distinguishes between them, he also states that these are equivalent principles.
Conant, Roger C. and Ashby, W. Ross, 1970, "Every Good Regulator Of A System Must Be A Model Of That System", International Journal of Systems Science, vol. 1, No. 2, 89-97.
Those of us who can read sometimes take it for granted. Many don't have this luxury. According to a recent UNESCO fact sheet, in 2009 more than 16% of the world's adults (793 million people) were illiterate, with more than 64% of these being women. "Adult and Youth Literacy", UIS Fact Sheet, September 2011, no. 16, The Unesco Institute for Statistics. Available online [PDF].
I have argued for the plausibility of this paraphrase in Scholten, Daniel L., 2010, "Every Good Key Must Be A Model Of The Lock It Opens: The Conant And Ashby Theorem Revisited", available on-line. It is also congruent with an observation made by Herbert A. Simon: "Solving a problem means representing it so as to make the solution transparent"; Simon, Herbert A., 1981, The Sciences of the Artificial, 2nd edition, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; as cited in Norman, Donald A., Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine, pg. 53, 1993, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Scholten, ibid.
Although I believe that such thought experiments are justified in the context of the present argument, their use in general should not be taken lightly. After all, as notes James Robert Brown, they have been used to refute the Copernican world view. See, Brown, James Robert, 1991, The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences, Routledge, New York, NY; page 35. See also, Brown, James Robert and Fehige, Yiftach, "Thought Experiments", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL.
A critical distinction that can be made between an idealized good-regulator model, which is really a dynamic entity, and its "technical specification", or what we might call its control-model. (Scholten, Daniel, L., "A Primer For The Conant And Ashby Theorem")

Another distinction to be recognized is that whereas the good-regulator model is dynamic, the control-model may be either static or dynamic.

As an example of a static control-model, consider a written recipe for roast duck, being used by an inexperienced cook to prepare an evening meal for guests. In this case, the system to be regulated consists of the various ingredients and kitchen tools to be used to create the meal, the dynamic good-regulator model is the human being doing the cooking, and the recipe is what we are calling the static control-model. The recipe is a control-model because the human being uses it, like a technical specification, to guide (control) his behavior and thus to "turn himself into" a good-regulator model.

As an example of a dynamic control-model, consider the case in which a child learns to use an idiomatic expression such as "two wrongs don't make a right" by overhearing an adult use that expression in a conversation. In this case the system to be regulated is a particular portion of some conversation in which the child is participating, the dynamic good-regulator model is the child, and the dynamic control-model is the adult role-model. The idea here is that the adult's behavior serves as a type of dynamic technical specification that the child then uses to control his or her own behavior in the context of the given conversation.

It is important to make these distinctions between a dynamic good-regulator model and its static or dynamic technical specification because otherwise the GRT appears to prove that the technical specification (control-model) is necessary, which is, I believe, a misreading of the theorem. The GRT only proves that the good-regulator model is necessary. On the other hand, it does appear to be an empirical fact that such technical specifications are also necessary. The thought-experiments illustrate this explicitly, although they also help us to see what our behavior looks like when we aren't acting as good-regulator models.

(For an in-depth, authoritative analysis of behavioral modeling, see Bandura, A., Social Foundations Of Thought & Action: A Social-Cognitive Theory, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey)
Let's recognize that one uniquely human characteristic is our astonishing capacity to simulate (in the manner of a Turing machine) the behavior of an enormous variety of much simpler and more specific machines. I have written more extensively about this in the "Three-Amibos Good-Regulator Tutorial," available on-line.
For a recent accessible discussion, see Klingberg, Torkel, 2009, The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload And The Limits Of Working Memory, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
I am making the assumption here that the multipurpose model is meant to apply to cities, restaurants, equipment, etc. that are not replicas of each other. Clearly there is no problem if all owners of the same brand of laptop computer use the same user-guide.
Hickey and Roberts, Tarnished Gold, page 43. Hickey and Roberts emphasize that it is not simply the symptoms that matter. Also important is the particular person in which those symptoms occur, where the particularities of that person have been determined by the complex interactions between that person's genes and the environments in which those genes have been expressed over the person's lifetime. In their discussion of this notion of "biochemical individuality", Hickey and Roberts cite Williams, R., 1998 (1956), Biochemical Individuality: Basis for the Genetotrophic Concept, McGraw-Hill, New York.
In the words of Conant and Ashby "...the theorem says that the best regulator of a system is one which is a model of that system in the sense that the regulator's actions are merely the system's actions as seen through a mapping...." Conant and Ashby, 1970, pg. 96.
Hickey and Roberts refer to this ponderous, adjectival freight-train as the "EBM-mantra"; ibid, page 164.
Ibid, page 24. Hickey and Roberts attribute the term to Robinson, W.S., 1935, "Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 30, 517-536.

About Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information

Sott.net For additional information about the flaws of Evidence Based Medicine read the following:

Evidence-Based Medicine: Neither Good Evidence nor Good Medicine

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the practice of treating individual patients based on the outcomes of huge medical trials. It is, currently the self-proclaimed gold standard for medical decision-making, and yet it is increasingly unpopular with clinicians. Their reservations reflect an intuitive understanding that something is wrong with its methodology. They are right to think this, for EBM breaks the laws of so many disciplines that it should not even be considered scientific. Indeed, from the viewpoint of a rational patient, the whole edifice is crumbling.

The assumption that EBM is good science is unsound from the start. Decision science and cybernetics (the science of communication and control) highlight the disturbing consequences. EBM fosters marginally effective treatments, based on population averages rather than individual need. Its mega-trials are incapable of finding the causes of disease, even for the most diligent medical researchers, yet they swallow up research funds. Worse, EBM cannot avoid exposing patients to health risks. It is time for medical practitioners to discard EBM's tarnished gold standard, reclaim their clinical autonomy, and provide individualized treatments to patients.

CDC, doctors push unproven vaccine 'cocooning' scheme hatched from pseudoscientific quackery

CDC, doctors push unproven vaccine 'cocooning' scheme hatched from pseudoscientific quackery by Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) The latest vaccine scam being peddled on the public by US health authorities involves vaccinating parents and family members against certain infectious diseases in order to supposedly prevent transmission of these diseases to babies that are too young to get vaccinated themselves. However, the practice, known as "cocooning," has admittedly never been scientifically proven to work in the first place, and in all honest terms is nothing more than unsubstantiated quackery.

A report recently published in the journal Pediatrics by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) claims that cocooning can help prevent babies from becoming infected with pertussis, also known as whooping cough, as well as influenza. But Dr. Herschel R. Lessin, one of the authors of the report, admitted recently that the concept has never been scientifically tested, and nobody can say for sure that it actually works.

"It's a relatively new concept," Dr. Lessin is quoted as saying by Reuters Health. "I don't know that anyone has looked at whether it works."

In fact, the only studies that have actually been conducted on cocooning have had to use made-up estimates and calculations rather than actual tests. In other words, scientists just created some numbers and percentages, which they then used to say that cocooning might work. And the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is always quick to endorse any program that promotes vaccines, took the opportunity to immediately endorse cocooning, despite a complete lack of evidence that it even works.

Officials in Canada are not taking the bait, however, as they say the cost of administering vaccines as part of a cocooning program, assuming they even work in the first place, far outweighs any supposed benefits. Even if cocooning might work in some cases, which has never been proven, it would take vaccinating a million people or more just to save one child from death, which would cost millions of dollars.

Many vaccination concepts have absolutely no basis in science, but are used to get as many people vaccinated as possible

It is mind-boggling to think that many vaccine advocates support vaccination concepts like cocooning or "herd immunity" on the false basis that they are rooted in sound science, when they are really nothing more than fairy tale myths. And yet these same folks are quick to malign anyone who questions or opposes such vaccination nonsense, accusing them of ignoring and denying science.

The real goal of the new report, though, is not necessarily to prevent infant deaths, or to even back up the cocooning theory with a semblance of sound science -- the purpose is simply to "get everyone immunized," these being the exact stated words of Dr. Lessin, who admitted openly his opinion that "immunization is the greatest thing in the history of mankind." So who needs actual science when your personal faith in vaccines is already set in stone?

Sources for this article include:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...

Amnesty International Closes Online Poll, Hides Human Rights Hero Winner

Amnesty International Closes Online Poll, Hides Human Rights Hero Winner - Mathaba

Online voting for Human Rights Hero 2011 closed one month early, and result censored, after Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi took clear lead along with Nabeel Rajab of Bahrain and Michael Jackson. Image: Hijacked as a money-making business forgetful of western crimes and state-terrorism, true human rights defenders have re-branded Amnesty

Mathaba News Agency was able to capture evidence of fraud and cheating by Amnesty International USA in its on-line poll for "Human Rights Hero" of 2011.

Already under intense criticism worldwide for having ignored the plight of the Libyan people who were bombed and invaded in the name of "human rights" by western powers, leading to the "Stalingrad" type blockage and destruction of entire cities, most notably Sirte, Amnesty International closed the on-line poll one month early, and changed the rules early January, after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the clear lead in the poll.

Libya had become the "Switzerland of Africa" after being the poorest country in the world, after Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969 and handed over power to the people to a novel system of direct participatory democracy in 1979. With free education, health, housing, electricity and water, and a new charter of human rights, Libya became a beacon for "freedom fighters" the world over, seeking to emulate some of the ideals of The Green Book.

After a sudden turn-around by bankrupted western nations who had been threatened by the socialist example of Libya which had shared its wealth throughout Africa and was engaged in a $42 billion project that would have seen Africa freed from the clutches of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the USA along with European NATO military partners, launched an all-out attack on Libya leading to immense humanitarian disaster, with the support of a compliant and compromised western news media.

Screen-shots late December and early January showed that Gaddafi was leading the Amnesty International USA vote as "Human Rights Hero" of 2011, which had clearly been unexpected and an embarrassment to the organisation which had remained largely mute on the atrocities committed by NATO and its mercenary rebel forces. Within days of the outright lead, which was visible on the website which published a graphical representation of the most popular votes, the "human rights" organization altered the rules to close the poll retrospectively, one month early.

Read complete article..

You’ve Been Lied to About Calcium and Cholesterol

You’ve Been Lied to About Calcium and Cholesterol by Paul Fassa

The big lie pertains to unbalanced calcium supplementation.

Calcium from raw whole foods is beneficial and necessary. But all those processed foods fortified with calcium or supplements high in elemental calcium are likely to do more harm than good.

Elemental calcium is the calcium apart from the compound in which it normally appears. For example, if you remove the calcium from calcium carbonate, you are left with elemental calcium.

Bone Health and Calcium

Several trials and tests have determined that calcium supplementation makes bones denser, but weaker! The calcium for bone health paradigm used by mainstream medicine is an unfortunate oversimplification.

Other minerals, such as magnesium, are part of the bone health supplemental paradigm. Dr. Robert Thompson, author of The Calcium Lie, explains that there are a dozen minerals involved with building strong bones. He recommends using unprocessed sea salt to compliment the trace mineral needs that we don’t get because of aggravated agricultural depleted topsoil.

Read complete article..

Related:

The Calcium Supplement Problem: As Serious As A Heart Attack

We Are Not Different - We Are Awake: Open the Door

It's Time To Wake Up - We Are All One - TradgedyandHope

Please share this video, far and wide! Modern Science is now beginning to confirm what Spirituality, Philosophy, Sages, Ancient teachings and psychedelics have been saying for millennia, that the entire Universe is One and that what we think of as "reality" is just an illusion.. And the only real thing in the Universe is Consciousness.

"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet." ~ Niels Bohr

'Science is now beginning to confirm what spirituality, philosophy, sages, ancient teachings and psychedelics have been saying for millennia: The entire Universe is One and that what we think of as 'reality' is just an illusion. And the only real thing in the Universe is Consciousness. Or, as David Icke puts it: 'Infinite Love is the only truth - everything else is illusion'. 'We are droplets in an infinite ocean of consciousness and when you place a droplet back in the ocean where does the ocean start and the droplet end? They don't. They are all One. Everything is One and was always One. I am you, you are me, I am everything and everything is me. We have just forgotten and been manipulated to forget.'

Source: Quantum Physicists are Proving Scientifically We Are Essentially All One

Comment: According to our language, the use of the word "one," may deceive as this is a dynamic, but also a static, and may be better understood by addressing the word "unique." This use aligns with the laws of nature better as many things it seems begin with the neutralizing force which is associated with the eunich, and which if you follow this back to its root, you find the word "school," and the word "entelechy," which is tied to the talisman relativity.

The two versions that are listed in the roots can be defined simply by stating one is about law, and the later about thought. See Avatar

Also, interestingly, the language places the word "requirescat," between the two sets of meanings which is supposedly a prayer for the repose of the souls of the dead.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

New Study on Fluoride Shows No Benefits and Major Safety Issues

New Study on Fluoride Shows No Benefits and Major Safety Issues by Dr. Mercola

Fluoride, a neurotoxin that has been linked to reduced IQ, impaired neurobehavioral development and brain damage, among many other serious health problems, is sometimes prescribed in supplement form to children ages 6 months to 16 years who live in areas that have non-fluoridated drinking water.

The rationale, which is heavily promoted by government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – or rather its Oral Health Division

Bodies like the American Dental Association (ADA), is that this toxic agent helps reduce cavities – and those children who are "unfortunate" enough NOT to have the poison forced upon them in their drinking water should get their daily dose elsewhere (i.e. in supplement form).
These recommendations now defy rational logic and common sense on two fronts:

1) even promoters of fluoridation now admit that fluoride's predominant action is on the surface of the tooth and not from inside the body (CDC, 1999) and

2) there are more than 100 published studies illustrating fluoride's harm to the brain, plus 25 published studies directly linking fluoride exposure to reduced IQ in children! In other words, it doesn't do much (if any) good to swallow fluoride and doing so could be doing significant harm.
Adding insult to injury, new research has further revealed that ingesting fluoride in supplement form does not reduce cavities in primary teeth – and may in fact cause harm.

Why You Need to Get Informed Before Allowing Your Child to Take Fluoride Supplements

A review of 11 studies involving more than 7,000 children showed that the effect of fluoride supplements on primary teeth could not be determined, with one study showing no cavity-reducing effect. Meanwhile, the study revealed the supplements have only dubious cavity-reducing effects on permanent teeth, and no difference was noted between fluoride supplements or topical fluoride for preventing cavities.
Researchers noted:

"In the review, no conclusion could be reached about the effectiveness of fluoride supplements in preventing tooth decay in young children (less than 6 years of age) with deciduous teeth. Moreover, insufficient evidence exists to show whether or not using fluoride supplements in young children (less than 6 years of age) could mottle teeth (fluorosis), an effect of chronic ingestion of excessive amounts of fluoride."
Adding to the stark lack of supporting evidence, researchers pointed out that 10 out of the 11 trials they reviewed were at "unclear risk of bias," and the 11th was at "high risk of bias" – leading researchers to conclude "therefore the trials provide weak evidence about the efficacy of fluoride supplements."

This is not the first time a study has questioned the use of fluoride supplements. In 2008, researchers reviewed 20 reports from 12 trials and similarly concluded:

"There is weak and inconsistent evidence that the use of fluoride supplements prevents dental caries in primary teeth … Mild-to-moderate dental fluorosis is a significant side effect. The current recommendations for use of fluoride supplements during the first six years of life should be re-examined."
What is so ludicrous about these findings is that fluorosis is associated with the irreversible discoloration of the teeth (yellow and brown spots) – the very aesthetically unappealing symptoms that most people think and are told the fluoride is supposed to prevent! The CDC admitted in 2010 that 41% of American children between the ages of 12-15 had this irreversible staining of their teeth (CDC, 2010) and in 2005 revealed that minority children are disproportionately impacted by this condition (CDC, 2005, Table 23).

ADA Recommends Fluoride Supplements Despite Evidence of Serious Risks

The truth has always been that fluoride is a toxic agent that is biologically active in the human body where it accumulates in sensitive tissues over time, wreaks havoc with enzymes and produces a number of serious adverse health effects —including neurological and endocrine dysfunctions (NRC, 2006).

Nearly 10 years ago, Belgium banned the sale of all non-prescription fluoride supplements citing well-documented research indicating that ingested fluoride has "considerable potential" for physical and neurological harm, with little evidence of cavity prevention. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meanwhile, has not found fluoride supplements to be safe or effective, according to the National Institute of Health, which lists a laundry list of fluoride's effects, including:

Staining of teeth	Unusual increase in saliva	Weakness	Stomach pain and upset stomach	Vomiting
Diarrhea	Rash	Salty or soapy taste	Tremor	Seizures

Not to mention, it's known that over time fluoride accumulates in many areas of your body, including areas of your brain that control and alter behavior, particularly your pineal gland, hippocampus and other limbic areas. One particularly striking animal study published in 1995 showed that fluoride ingestion had a profound influence on the animals' brains and altered behavior. Pregnant rats given fluoride produced hyperactive offspring. And animals given fluoride after birth became apathetic, lethargic "couch potatoes."

This study was particularly powerful because the effects were measured using objective computerized evaluations of behavior, to rule out subjective bias by the researchers observing the animals.

For the past 60 years, pregnant women have ingested fluoridated water and used fluoridated water to reconstitute infant formula for their babies. If the adverse effects associated with fluoride exposure in animals are true for humans as well, we'd expect to see a striking change in human behavior at this point as well.

And we most definitely do!

One in ten children are now diagnosed with ADHD. While no US agency has funded or attempted to see if this condition has been caused by or exacerbated by fluoride the connection is biologically plausible and worrying. But the attitude of the American health authorities that continue to recklessly promote fluoridation is that the "absence of studies means the absence of harm."

Aside from the animal studies that show that fluoride damages the brain, and the 25 studies indicating lowered IQ associated with modest to high exposure to fluoride, mild reduction of thyroid function in pregnant women has been shown to produce significant neurological problems in their offspring as well.

Outrageously, there is no mention of the risks or lack of efficacy on the American Dental Association's Fluoride Supplements Web page, other than mild dental fluorosis. Instead they claim the fluoride supplements are "silently at work fighting decay. Safe, convenient, effective..."
Dental fluorosis is only caused by fluoride, and is typically due to ingesting too much during your developing years, from birth to about 8 years of age. Dental fluorosis is not a merely cosmetic problem, as it is usually an indication that the rest of your body has been exposed to too much fluoride as well.

You Can Opt Out of the Supplements, But it's Much Harder to Get Fluoride Out of Your Drinking Water

The only positive side to fluoride in supplement form is that you can make a choice of whether or not to take it. In the case of the fluoride that's added to the water supplies of nearly 75 percent of Americans, you have no choice. It's there whether you like it or not.

China, in contrast, does NOT allow water fluoridation because it's too toxic and causes damage, according to their studies. Instead, the waste product from their phosphate fertilizer industry is shipped to the United States, where we add it to our water supply!

This is a very important point: the fluoride added to your water is NOT even pharmaceutical grade.

It's a toxic industrial waste product, which is also contaminated with lead, arsenic, radionucleotides, aluminum and other industrial contaminants. The story gets even more convoluted, as now declassified files of the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission show that the original motivation for promoting fluoride and water fluoridation in the United States was to protect the bomb- and aluminum industries other fluoride polluting industries from liability. In the early days some of the sodium fluoride used to fluoridate water supplies in the U.S. came from Alcoa.

A couple of years later, they switched to the even more hazardous waste product hydrofluorosilicic acid from the phosphate fertilizer industry. But none of the studies on fluoride actually used the far more toxic and contaminated hydrofluorosilicic acid that is added to the water supply. Rather, they use pharmaceutical grade fluoride, which while harmful, is not quite as bad as what's being used for water fluoridation. So, the health hazards are likely FAR worse than any study has so far discerned.

Some proponents of fluoridation believe that the large dilution of these fluoridating chemicals that takes place when they are added at the public water works ameliorates concerns about the known contaminants. However, one of those contaminants is arsenic, which is a known human carcinogen. For the EPA there is no safe level for a human carcinogen. Inevitably, the addition of contaminated hexafluorosilicic acid to the water supply by definition must increase the cancer rate in the U.S. because of the arsenic it contains.

One can argue about how much this cancer risk is increased by, but there is no question that it will be increased. Why would any rational government do that to reduce – at best – a miniscule amount of tooth decay?

For people living in areas with fluoridated tap water, fluoride is a part of every glass of water, every bath and shower, and every meal cooked using that water.

This makes absolutely no sense considering the significant health risks of this toxin -- and the data published online by the World Health Organization showing that 12-year-olds in countries that do not fluoridate their water have similar if not better tooth decay rates than countries that do.

Join the Fight to Get Fluoride Out of Drinking Water

In summary it would seem most rational people would conclude you should avoid using fluoride for its "preventive" benefits. You can easily choose not to take fluoride supplements or buy fluoride-free toothpaste and mouthwash. But you're stuck with whatever your community puts in the water, and it's very difficult to filter out of your water once it's added. Many do not have the resources or the knowledge to do so.

The only real solution is to stop the archaic practice of water fluoridation.

Earlier this year I joined forces with Dr. Paul Connett to help put an END to water fluoridation in the U.S and Canada. The Fluoride Action Network has a game plan to do just that. Our fluoride initiative will primarily focus on Canada since 60 percent of Canada is already non-fluoridated. If we can get Calgary and the rest of Canada to stop fluoridating their water, we believe the U.S. will be forced to follow. I urge you to join the anti-fluoride movement in Canada and United States by contacting the representative for your area below.

Contact Information for Canadian Communities:

If you live in Ontario, Canada, please join the ongoing effort by contacting Diane Sprules at diane.sprules@cogeco.ca.

The point-of-contact for Toronto, Canada is Aliss Terpstra. You may email her at aliss@nutrimom.ca.

The point-of-contact for the Peel region in Ontario, Canada is Rob Brewer. You may email him at FluorideFreePeel@ymail.com. Also see Fluoride Free Peel's Facebook page.

Contact Information for American Communities:

We're also going to address three US communities: New York City, Austin, and San Diego:

New York City, NY: The anti-fluoridation movement has a great champion in New York City councilor Peter Vallone, Jr. who introduced legislation on January 18 "prohibiting the addition of fluoride to the water supply."

A victory there could signal the beginning of the end of fluoridation in the U.S. If you live in the New York area I beg you to participate in this effort as your contribution could have a MAJOR difference. Remember that one person can make a difference. The point person for this area is Carol Kopf, at the New York Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). Email her at NYSCOF@aol.com. Please contact her if you're interested in helping with this effort.
Austin, Texas: Join the effort by contacting Rae Nadler-Olenick at either: info@fluoridefreeaustin.com or fluoride.info@yahoo.com, or by regular mail or telephone:

POB 7486
Austin, Texas 78713
Phone: (512) 371-3786

San Diego, California: Contact Patty Ducey-Brooks, publisher of the Presidio Sentinel at pbrooks936@aol.com.

Consumer Alert: 300+ Health Problems Linked To Statin Drugs

Consumer Alert: 300+ Health Problems Linked To Statin Drugs by Sayer Ji

A growing body of clinical research now indicates that the cholesterol-lowering class of drugs known as statins, are associated with over 300 adverse health effects -- research boldly flying in the face of national health policy, medical insurance premium guidelines, statin drug manufacturer advertising claims, and the general sentiment of the public, with approximately 1 in every 4 adult Americans over 45 currently using these drugs to "prevent heart disease."

The Cholesterol Myth

For well over 40 years, statin drugs have successfully concretized a century old myth about the primary cause of heart disease: namely, that cholesterol "causes" plaque build up in the arteries, ultimately leading to obstruction of blood flow, and subsequent morbidity and mortality.

Indeed, the medical establishment and drug companies have been singing the praises of this "cholesterol myth," to the tune of 25 billion dollars in statin drug sales, annually.

While it is true that oxidized low-density lipoprotein is found within the atheromatous plaque that is found in damaged arteries, it is less likely a cause than an effect of heart disease. The underlying damage to the lining of the artery, which could be infectious, chemical, stress and/or nutritionally-related, comes before the immune response that results in plaque buildup there. Blaming LDL cholesterol for causing heart disease, is like blaming the scab for the injury that caused it to form, or, like blaming the band-aid for the scab it is covering -- this is, after all, the inborn and fatal flaw of allopathic medicine which focuses only on symptoms of disease, which it then -- fool-heartedly -- attempts to suppress by any chemical means necessary.

Death By Statins?

No one can deny that statins do exactly what they are designed to do: suppress cholesterol production and reduce measurable blood serum levels. The question is, rather, at what price do they accomplish this feat, and for what ultimate purpose?

With the National Cholesterol Education Program Guidelines, having been designed by "experts" on the payroll of statin drug manufacturers, requiring ultra-low levels to obtain a strictly theoretical and numerical definition of "health," statin drugs are guaranteed to receive first-line treatment status in the goal of the preventing and treating heart disease through lipid suppression.

What is at question here, is whether the unintended, adverse effects of this chemical class of drugs are less, the same or worse than the purported "cardiovascular" benefits they provide?

Fundamentally, statin drugs damage the muscles and nerves in the body -- so much so that a dose as low as 5 mg a day can kill a human. There are well over 100 studies demonstrating the myotoxic, or muscle-harming effects of these drugs, and over 80 demonstrating the nerve-damaging effects, as well. When you consider that a vast proportion of our body is comprised of muscles and coordinating nerve systems, this drug has the potential to cause damage to the entire body, and undoubtedly does so universally, differing only in the matter of degree -- the damage occurring acutely in those at the tip of the iceberg, asymptomatically in the majority of others at the base.

Moreover, statin myotoxicity is not exclusive to skeletal muscle. If you consider that the heart is also a muscle, in fact, is our most tireless muscle, an obvious red flag should go up. It is a remarkable fact that it took over 40 years before the biomedical research and publishing fields were able to produce a human study, like the one published in the Journal of Clinical Cardiology in Dec. 2009, showing that statin drugs, despite billions of advertising/marketing dollars to the contrary, actually weaken the heart muscle.

These results, while disturbing, are to be expected given the well-known problem associated with statin drug use, namely, the inhibition of the mevalonate pathway necessary to produce the heart-essential nutrient coenzyme Q10. Coenzyme Q10 deficiency itself may be a major contributing cause to heart disease. There is also research that statin drugs deplete the body of the cardioprotective minerals (and associated mineral-protein complexes) zinc and selenium. This finding may also explain why rates of heart failure may be increasing in the general population given these drugs.

While the discovery that statin drugs, instead of preventing heart disease, likely contribute to it, is surprising and counterintuitive, it should not distract from the more disturbing discovery that they contribute to over 300 disease and/or adverse health effects.

Millions of statin drugs users around the globe are risking their lives on a bad bet that taking a magic chemical pill will reduce their risk of dying of a disease that is not caused by a lack of the drug. What is more likely to happen, however, is that the quality and duration of their lives will be reduced, profoundly, along with billions of dollars of squandered cash that could have been spent on authentically medicinal and cardioprotective foods, nutrients, minerals and vitamins.

In light of these findings, a very serious question is raised: are those who are party to the manufacture, promotion, administration and/or prescribing of this chemical class of drugs, in violation of the medical ethical principle of informed consent? And is this ethical violation, insofar as it results in injury to those who have been mislead and/or coerced to take these drugs, also a legal/criminal one?

Most Explosive Nuclear video yet (read below) Arnie Gundersen

Most Explosive Nuclear video yet (read below) p1/2 Arnie Gundersen

Most Explosive Nuclear video yet (read below) p2/2 Arnie Gundersen

Related:

Chris Hedges "Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over & The Descent Is Going To Be Horrifying!"

Chris Hedges "Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over & The Descent Is Going To Be Horrifying!" - Activist Post

Monday, January 2, 2012

Monsanto’s GMO Crops Ravage US, USDA Ignores Dangers

Monsanto’s GMO Crops Ravage US, USDA Ignores Dangers by Mike Barrett

Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, which has been hailed as the answer to many farmers’ prayers, has actually been creating resistant superbugs for years.

The genetically modified crop known as Bt corn has been altered to produce its own toxin, a pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis which was implemented into the crop to kill off rootworms before they have a chance to ruin the crop.

However the truth of the matter is that this hybrid crop, taking up 65 percent of all U.S. corn production, has been shown to cause a resistance in rootworm beetles, rendering the crop useless.

So then why is the United States allowing Monsanto to ramp up the usage of this environment-wrecking crop?

Monsanto Bt Corn Failing, Yet U.S. is Slow to ‘Pull the Plug’

The EPA found that the resistant rootworms, which are evolving to resist the insecticide, are currently found Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska. After the EPA evaluated documented cases of severe crop damage as well as reports from entomologists, they stated that “Monsanto’s program for monitoring suspected cases of resistance is inadequate.”

At least 8 populations of insects have developed resistance, with 2 populations resistant to Bt sprays and at least 6 species resistant to Bt crops as a whole. But this is creating a vicious cycle very similar to how humans have become resistant to antibiotics, calling for stronger drugs.

As a solution to the Bt resistance, biotech scientists are now creating even stronger genetically modified Bt as farmers use even more pesticides to combat the resistant bugs. And this is just one example of how biotech corporations and GMO crops are threatening the environment and humankind alike.

But the U.S. seems to be rather slow in taking any sort of action on a grand scale. While GMO crops are being rejected by other nations such as Hungary, Peru, and France, the U.S. still decides to push for further genetic modification. This is also reflected by the dominant presence of Monsanto’s rBGH in the U.S. The synthetic hormone is created using molecules and DNA sequences that are a result of molecular cloning, which has been linked to breast and gastrointestinal cancer. Unfortunately, it is estimated that around 1/3 of cows in the United States are injected with this synthetic hormone, which means that you have most likely been highly exposed to rBGH if you live in the U.S. or have eaten U.S. dairy products. All the while, 27 other countries are recognizing these problems, and have subsequently banned the synthetic hormone.

In fact, the U.S. is the only developed nation to allow for humans to consume milk from cows given artificial growth hormone. Are U.S. government officials truly convinced that GMO crops and even rBGH dairy products are safe for human consumption, or does it have more to do with the fact that key political figures who were instrumental in the approval of GMO crops and rBGH were actually affiliated with Monsanto?

It is sad to see how the U.S. continues to so gracefully step back and give biotech giant Monsanto more power. Not only are government agencies ignoring these dangers, but the USDA seems to be so pleased with Monsanto that they even considered allowing the GMO giant to police itself. Nothing good can come from regulations where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm.

Explore More:

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

Comment: I've added Medusa to the analaeta as a marker for the FDA, EPA, and USDA and their abusive natures. These need reworking and put back in the hands of the people.

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