Homeopathy Treats the Whole Person!

Homeopathy Treats the Whole Person!
July 4, 2012 | Josephine

This is often misinterpreted to mean everything about the person including ‘Personality’ type, aversions and cravings, weather, time, modalities of the ‘person’ even when well.

What we are really looking for are the deviations of these, the striking opposite or the exacerbation of these sub-symptoms when sick.

Statements like “Homeopathy treats the person not the disease” can be very unclear and misunderstood. What Hahnemann states is that we don’t treat the ‘name’ of the disease, but the unique and characteristic symptoms that individualise and represent the precise disease suffered by a patient, which has its closest match and thus most efficient curative response from a particular substance known to cause such similar deviation of symptoms in healthy humans.

Thus Homeopathy treats the whole of the diseased person.

Also according to Hahnemann, this often means the totality of the ‘principal’, predominant and most disturbing disease.

An Example in practise: If a patient in their ‘diseased state’ develops an aversion to bananas, that when in healthy state they desire, then aversion to bananas is used to individualise the persons susceptibility to disease.

However, if that same patient in their sickness had an increased desire for bananas on top of the usual level of desire, then this would be repertorised as a characteristic key to the remedy and may suggest that this sub-symptom is representative of a general state of chronic disease as well as the acute flare ups. The same medicine may be needed but in different potencies with varied repetition to manage the acute and chronic phases.

 
About Josephine


Josephine is in her final year of studies of Homeopathic Medicine from Nature Care College in Sydney. Her current areas of research and interest are Mental Health, Nutrition, and Immunisation. Josephine has had an interest in fitness and wellbeing from an early age, and lives a nutritious and active lifestyle. Favourite recreational activities: Body Combat, Yoga, and Trekking through Sydney's picturesque Northern Beaches. Her passion is affecting the lives of her patients through achieving wellness with Homeopathics acting on a deep constitutional level. Her motto for life and business is 'do the Nike thing....Just do it'

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Meditation Success Relies on Techniques That Are Comfortable Rather Than Popular

© preventdisease.com

Meditation Success Relies on Techniques That Are Comfortable Rather Than Popular 
July 6, 2012 | Prevent Disease

New to meditation and already thinking about quitting? You may have simply chosen the wrong method. A new study published online July 7 in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing highlights the importance of ensuring that new meditators select methods with which they are most comfortable, rather than those that are most popular.

If they do, they are likely to stick with it, says Adam Burke, the author of the study. If not, there is a higher chance they may abandon meditation altogether, losing out on its myriad personal and medical benefits. Burke is a professor of Health Education at SF State and the director of SF State's Institute for Holistic Health Studies.

"Because of the increase in both general and clinical use of meditation, you want to make sure you're finding the right method for each person," he said. Although meditation has become significantly more popular in the U.S., Burke said, there have been very few studies comparing multiple methods head to head to examine individual preference or specific clinical benefits.

Over the years, published research has demonstrated that the practice of regular meditation can increase brain density, boost connections between neurons, decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety, provide clarity of thought, and increase positive mood endorphins. Other published studies have shown meditation can improve physical functioning, decrease chronic disease risks, and enhance overall quality of life. These studies demonstrate that regular meditation effectively supports mental, emotional and physical health in numerous tangible ways. In building upon this strong body of evidence, researchers are continuing to deepen our understanding of the profound and inspirational benefits of regular meditation practice in everyday life.

To better understand user preference, Burke compared four popular meditation methods -- Mantra, Mindfulness, Zen and Qigong Visualization -- to see if novice meditation practitioners favored one over the others. The study's 247 participants were taught each method and asked to practice at home and, at the end of the study, evaluate which they preferred. The two simpler methods, Mantra and Mindfulness, were preferred by 31 percent of study participants. Zen and Qigong had smaller but still sizable contingents of adherents, with 22 percent and 14.8 percent of participants preferring them, respectively.

The results show the value of providing new practitioners a simpler, more accessible method of meditation. But they also emphasize that no one technique is best for everyone, and even less common methods are preferred by certain people. Older participants, who grew up when Zen was becoming one of the first meditation techniques to gain attention in the U.S., in particular were more likely to prefer that method.

"It was interesting that Mantra and Mindfulness were found to be equally compelling by participants despite the fact that they are fundamentally different techniques," Burke said. Mindfulness is the most recent meditation technique to gain widespread popularity, he added, and is often the only one with which a novice practitioner or health professional is familiar. Not surprisingly, Mindfulness was the method most preferred by the youngest participants.

"If someone is exposed to a particular technique through the media or a healthcare provider, they might assume because it's popular it's the best for everyone," Burke said. "But that's like saying because a pink dress or a blue sport coat is popular this year, it's going to look good on everybody. In truth, different people like different things. One size does not fit all."

If an individual is not comfortable with a specific method for any reason, he said, they may be less likely to continue meditating and would lose out on such benefits as reduced stress, lower blood pressure or even treatment for addiction.

Burke hopes to see more comparative meditation studies, especially to determine if particular methods are better at addressing specific health issues, such as addiction. If that's the case, he said, healthcare professionals would be able to guide patients toward techniques that will be most effective for them. Additional studies are also needed to determine if there is a way to predict which method will be best suited for any particular individual, he said.

Farmers Continue Fight Against Monsanto

Farmers Continue Fight Against Monsanto
July 6, 2012 | Common Dreams

Appeal filed to reverse Feb. decision allowing "Monsanto’s scorched earth legal campaign of threats and intimidation against America’s farmers" to continue

Organic farmers' fight against Monsanto continues as they filed an appeal against the agricultural giant on Thursday hoping to reverse a February decision dismissing their protective legal action against the company.

Seventy-five family farmers, seed businesses, and agricultural organizations originally filed suit in March 2011 in an act of self-protection against what Food Democracy Now!'s founder and executive director Dave Murphy calls "Monsanto's scorched earth legal campaign of threats and intimidation against America’s farmers." In this campaign, Monsanto has threatened and filed suit against farmers for patent infringement when its genetically modified seeds reach unsuspecting farmers' fields.

But in February 2012 a district court sided with Monsanto, dismissing farmers' unwanted genetic contamination of their crops and documented threats against the farmers by Monsanto.

Attorney Dan Ravicher of Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), which is representing the plaintiffs, says that Monsanto's bullying practices are known. “They’ve sued and harassed many other farmers who wanted nothing to do with their genetically modified seed and now that organic and conventional farmers are fighting back, they claim they would never do such a thing without backing up their words with an enforceable promise.”

“We have a right to farm the way we choose,” said Maine organic seed farmer Jim Gerritsen, President of lead plaintiff Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA). “Yet Monsanto is unwilling to control their GMO pollution and they refuse to sign a binding covenant not-to-sue our family farmers for patent infringement should their seed contaminate our crops. Monsanto’s publicized ‘Commitment’ promising that they would not sue farmers was described by Monsanto’s own lawyers as being ‘vague.’"

"The law says we deserve protection under the Declaratory Judgment Act. We will continue to pursue our right to farm, and the right of our customers to have access to good clean food and seed,” says Gerritsen.
Urging the rights of farmers, Food Democracy Now!'s Murphy adds, “No company should be allowed to violate the property rights of America’s farmers or threaten their livelihoods through the use of frivolous patent infringement lawsuits designed to control farmers and the food supply, while protecting Monsanto’s flawed seed technology and corporate profits.”

Monsanto seed of discord brings Latin American Spring

Monsanto seed of discord brings Latin American Spring
July 7, 2012 | RussiaToday

The 'Monsanto Rider': Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?

Photo Credit: Bogdan Wankowicz/ Shutterstock.com

The 'Monsanto Rider': Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?
July 6, 2012 | AlterNet / By Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins

The Secretary of Agriculture would be required to grant a permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, regardless of environmental impact.

While many Americans were firing up barbecues and breaking out the sparklers to celebrate Independence Day, biotech industry executives were more likely chilling champagne to celebrate another kind of independence: immunity from federal law.

A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.
Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.

In a statement issued last month, the Center For Food Safety had this to say about the biotech industry’s latest attempt to circumvent legal and regulatory safeguards:

Ceding broad and unprecedented powers to industry, the rider poses a direct threat to the authority of U.S. courts, jettisons the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) established oversight powers on key agriculture issues and puts the nation’s farmers and food supply at risk.

In other words, if this single line in the 90-page Agricultural Appropriations bill slips through, it’s Independence Day for the biotech industry.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has sponsored an amendment to kill the rider, whose official name is “the farmers assurance” provision. But even if DeFazio’s amendment makes it through the House vote, it still has to survive the Senate. Meanwhile, organizations like the Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, FoodDemocracyNow!, the Alliance for Natural Health USA and many others are gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures in protest of the rider, and in support of DeFazio’s amendment.

Will Congress do the right thing and keep what are arguably already-weak safeguards in place, to protect farmers and the environment? Or will industry win yet another fight in the battle to exert total control over our farms and food supply?

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Biotech’s ‘Legislator of the Year’ behind the latest sneak attack

Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) – who not coincidentally was voted "legislator of the year for 2011-2012" by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont.  As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a "champion of America's biotechnology industry" who has "helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States."

Kingston clearly isn’t interested in the survival of America’s farmers.

Aiding and abetting Kingston is John C. Greenwood, former US Congressman from Pennsylvania and now president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. No stranger to the inner workings of Congress, Greenwood lobbied for the “farmers assurance provision” in a June 13 letter to Congress, according to Mother Jones and Bloomberg, claiming that “a stream of lawsuits” have slowed approvals and “created uncertainties” for companies developing GE crops.

Greenwood was no doubt referring to several past lawsuits, including one brought in 2007 by the Center for Food safety challenging the legality of the USDA’s approval of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa. In that case, a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GMO alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of Roundup.  The USDA was forced to undertake a four-year study of GMO alfalfa’s impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). During the four-year study, farmers were banned from planting or selling the crop – creating that ‘uncertainty” that Greenwood is so worried about.

The USDA study slowed down the release of GMO alfalfa, but ultimately couldn’t stop it. As Mother Jones reports, in 2011, the USDA deregulated the crop, even though according to its own study, the USDA said that “gene flow” between GM and non-GM alfalfa is "probable," and threatens organic dairy producers and other users of non-GMO alfalfa, and that there is strong potential for the creation of Roundup-resistant "superweeds" that require ever-higher doses of Roundup and application of ever-more toxic herbicides. The report noted that two million acres of US farmland already harbor Roundup-resistant weeds caused by other Roundup Ready crops.

In another case – which perhaps paved the way for this latest provision now before the House - the USDA in 2011 outright defied a federal judge’s order to halt the planting of Monsanto’s controversial Roundup-Ready GMO sugar beets until it completed an Environmental Impact Statement. The USDA allowed farmers to continue planting the crop even while it was being assessed for safety on the grounds that there were no longer enough non-GMO seeds available to plant.

Who loses if Monsanto wins this one?

Among the biggest losers if Congress ignores the DeFazio amendment and passes the “farmers assurance provision” are thousands of farmers of conventional and organic crops, including those who rely on the export market for their livelihoods. An increasing number of global markets are requiring GMO-free agricultural products or, at the very least, enforcing strict GMO labeling laws. If this provision passes, it will allow unrestricted planting of potentially dangerous crops, exposing other safe and non-GMO crops to risk of contamination.

As we’ve seen in the past, farmers who grow crops that have been inadequately tested and later found dangerous, or whose safe crops become contaminated by nearby unsafe crops, risk huge losses and potentially, lawsuits from their customers. Ultimately, the entire US agriculture market and US economy suffers.

We have only to look back to the StarLink corn and LibertyLink rice contamination episodes for evidence of how misguided this provision is. In October 2000, traces of an Aventis GM corn called StarLink showed up in taco shells in the U.S. even though the corn had not been approved for human consumption because leading allergists were concerned it would cause food allergies. The contamination led to a massive billion dollar recall of over 300 food brands. The 'StarLink' gene also turned up unexpectedly in a second company's corn and in US corn exports, causing a costly disruption to the nation’s grain-handling system, and spurring lawsuits by farmers whose crops were damaged.

A similar disaster occurred for US rice farmers in 2006. In august of that year the USDA announced that mutant DNA of Liberty Link, a genetically modified variety of rice developed by Bayer CropScience, a then-German agri-business giant, were found in commercially-grown long-grain rice in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Missouri. LibertyLink rice, named for Bayer’s broad-spectrum herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, was never intended for human consumption. Following the announcement of contamination, Japan banned all long-grain rice imports from the U.S., and U.S. trade with the EU and other countries ground to a halt.  Rice farmers and cooperatives were forced to engage in five long years of litigation against Bayer

CropScience in an attempt to recoup some of their losses.

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All the other ways this provision is just plain bad

There’s a reason we have laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Plant Protection Act of 2000, which was specifically designed “to strengthen the safety net for agricultural producers by providing greater access to more affordable risk management tools and improved protection from production and income loss . . .”. The ‘farmers assurance provision” is a thinly disguised attempt by the biotech industry to undermine these protections. Worse yet, it’s an affront to everyone who believes the US judicial system exists to protect US citizens and public health.

Why should you be outraged about this provision? For all these reasons:

·      The Monsanto Rider is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. Judicial review is an essential element of U.S. law, providing a critical and impartial check on government decisions that may negatively impact human health, the environment or livelihoods. Maintaining the clear-cut boundary of a Constitutionally-guaranteed separation of powers is essential to our government. This provision will blur that line.

·      Judicial review is a gateway, not a roadblock. Congress should be fully supportive of our nation’s independent judiciary. The ability of courts to review, evaluate and judge an issue that impacts public and environmental health is a strength, not a weakness, of our system. The loss of this fundamental safeguard could leave public health, the environment and livelihoods at risk.

·      It removes the “legal brakes” that prevent fraud and abuse. In recent years, federal courts have ruled that several USDA GE crop approvals violated the law and required further study of their health and environmental impact. These judgments indicated that continued planting would cause harm to the environment and/or farmers and ordered interim planting restrictions pending further USDA analysis and consideration. The Monsanto rider would prevent a federal court from putting in place court-ordered restrictions, even if the approval were fraudulent or involved bribery.

·      It’s unnecessary and duplicative. Every court dealing with these issues is supposed to carefully weigh the interests of all affected farmers and consumers, as is already required by law. No farmer has ever had his or her crops destroyed as a result. USDA already has working mechanisms in place to allow partial approvals, and the Department has used them, making this provision completely unnecessary.

·      It shuts out the USDA. The rider would not merely allow, it would compel the Secretary of Agriculture to immediately grant any requests for permits to allow continued planting and commercialization of an unlawfully approved GE crop. With this provision in place, USDA may not be able to prevent costly contamination episodes like Starlink or Liberty Link rice, which have already cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The rider would also make a mockery of USDA’s legally mandated review, transforming it into a ‘rubber stamp’ approval process.

·      It’s a back-door amendment of a statute. This rider, quietly tacked onto an appropriations bill, is in effect a substantial amendment to USDA’s governing statute for GE crops, the Plant Protection Act. If Congress feels the law needs to be changed, it should be done in a transparent manner by holding hearings, soliciting expert testimony and including full opportunity for public debate.

If we allow this “Monsanto Rider” to be slipped into the FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, consumers and farmers will lose what little control we have now over what we plant and what we eat.
If you would like to join the hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens who have already written to Congress in support of the DeFazio amendment, please sign our petition here.

Alexis Baden-Mayer is Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association.

Ronnie Cummins is founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association. Cummins is author of numerous articles and books, including "Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers" (Second Revised Edition Marlowe & Company 2004).

Dr. Michael McNeill to Provide Expert Presentation on Health and Agriculture Risks of Monsanto's Herbicide

Dr. Michael McNeill will be
Lecturing at the UMPI Campus
Friday, July 13 5:30 - 8:00 pm

Dr. Michael McNeill to Provide Expert Presentation on Health and Agriculture Risks of Monsanto's Herbicide
July 6, 2012 | Activist Post

Dr. Michael McNeill, of Algona, Iowa, will deliver a lecture at the UM Presque Isle Campus Center on Friday, July 13, 2012, from 5:30-8:00 pm. Dr McNeill's lecture is entitled "Genetically Modified – In the News and On Your Plate."

Through the presentation of extensive peer-reviewed scientific research, explained in a manner understandable to farmers, consumers and lay persons, Dr. McNeill will present a strong cautionary examination of the agronomic and food security problems associated with an overuse of glyphosate; the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Dr. McNeill is President of Ag Advisory LTD, an Iowa company that provides agronomic consulting services to farmers. He holds a PhD in Plant Breeding and Statistical Genetics from Iowa State University. His company advises on individual farm plans – organic and conventional – with an emphasis on healthy biological soil management. Dr. McNeill serves as an expert legal witness on livestock and plant diseases. His farm provides contract research capability for agricultural businesses and government on soil fertility, soil tillage, plant disease and insect control. His career includes a position as Research Biologist with the U.S. Army where he studied soybean and corn diseases.

In 2011, Dr. McNeill was one of a select group of scientists, including plant pathologist and retired U.S. Army Colonel and germ warfare expert, Dr. Donald Huber, from Purdue University, who traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with U.S. Department of Agriculture officials. There, the scientists expressed grave concern and urged caution based on observations from ongoing research which shows serious negative consequences from the overuse of the herbicide Roundup, which is extensively used in Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO crops such as corn and soybeans.

 "Last winter, I was fortunate to have heard Dr. McNeill deliver this same lecture in Bangor", said Jim Gerritsen, an organic farmer from Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater. "His lecture was so powerful and so well-documented, and the content so crucial for our families and to the food security of our country, that we immediately developed plans for bringing Dr McNeill back to Maine, so that he could speak to additional audiences including here in Aroostook County."

Prior to speaking in Presque Isle, Dr McNeill will deliver his lecture to audiences in southern Maine. He will speak both in Starks on Wednesday July 11 (Maine Alternative Agriculture Assn, 699 Anson Road, 6pm); and at Bowdoin College in Brunswick on Thursday July 12, (Bowdoin's Maine Lounge, 7pm).

Dr McNeill's Presque Isle lecture is being sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), Maine Alternative Agriculture Association, Wood Prairie Farm Education Fund, and Slow Food Aroostook. Attendance is free and open to the public. All are welcome and invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served. Everyone who eats or farms should make plans to attend this important, informative and well-documented presentation. Any questions on the event may be directed to Jim Gerritsen at Wood Prairie Farm, 207-429-9765.

You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE

About Maine's Wood Prairie Farm (www.woodprairie.com; 800-829-9765)

Wood Prairie Farm is located in Aroostook County, Northern Maine's historic center of potato farming. For over 36 years, Jim & Megan Gerritsen and their family have been farming organically and grow the finest potatoes, seed and vegetables. Wood Prairie Farm's organic seed potatoes, kitchen potatoes, vegetable and cover crop seeds and other products are available direct to the customer by mail order from its website and catalog.

Wood Prairie Farm is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/woodprairiefarm.

High resolution photo of Jim Gerritsen available here.Complete background information about OSGATA et al v. Monsanto is available at www.woodprairie.com/wpf_news.

Monsanto's Roundup is Causing DNA Damage

© prometheanpost.com
Monsanto's Roundup is
Causing DNA Damage

Monsanto's Roundup is Causing DNA Damage
Mar. 30, 2012 | Mike Barrett

There is a reason that masks are worn while applying herbicides, and warning signs are erected upon recently sprayed land plots; herbicide exposure is known to cause serious health complications.

New research has recently been released showing that glyphosate, the main active ingredient found in Monsanto's Roundup Ultra Max, is causing both DNA and cellular damage to cells found in the mouth and throat.

Seeing as the inhalation of herbicides and ingredients like glyphosate is very common, this research alone is enough to raise concern over the safety of such substances which are used on a major scale.

The Institute of Science in Society reports:

...Monsanto's formulated version of glyphosate called Roundup Ultra Max caused cellular damage and DNA damage including chromosomal abnormalities and ultimately killed the cells at higher concentrations. Importantly, DNA damage occurred at concentrations below those required to induce cell damage, suggesting that the DNA damage was caused directly by glyphosate instead of being an indirect result of cell toxicity.

The research comes shortly after Monsanto's all-too-popular Roundup has been shown to be killing off human kidney cells - even at low doses. Scientists demonstrated in the research that Monsanto's 'biopesticide' Bt, in addition to Roundup, cause direct toxicity to human cells. They found that at only 100 parts per million (ppm), the biopesticide led to cell death, while it only took 57.2ppm of Roundup to kill half of the cell population in their research. Turns out that the amount of Roundup shown to cause this damage is 200 times below agricultural use.

Although harm caused by glyphosate and Roundup is thought to be experienced only by those spraying the herbicide, Roundup may actually causing harm to millions of people. Roundup is not only sprayed on the food we eat, but it is also used by countless households as a consumer herbicide product. Roundup is so prevalent that it has been found in 41 percent of the 140 groundwater samples tested from Catalonia, Spain. Even more concerning, a recent German study found glyphosate in all urine samples tested in concentrations at 5 to 20-fold the limit established for drinking water.

Despite the evidence stacking up against Monsanto, they continue to push their health-damaging products on the public through personal and commercial use.

The corruption of the Farm Bill, and why clean, organic food remains more expensive than conventional

Source

The corruption of the Farm Bill, and why clean, organic food remains more expensive than conventional
July 6, 2012 | Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) If you have ever wondered why junk food is almost always artificially cheap compared to healthy food, you need look no further than federal agriculture policy. Little do most people know that the federal government funnels billions of taxpayer dollars via the "Farm Bill" into large-scale crop systems that primarily grow genetically-modified (GM) soy, corn, cotton and other commodity crops used throughout the highly-processed, industrial food supply.

Every five years, Congress reviews the guidelines of the existing Farm Bill, and comes up with new ways to allocate the nearly-trillion dollar sum typically apportioned for American agriculture programs. And since existing Farm Bill provisions are set to expire on September 30, 2012, the Obama administration is currently pushing Congress to pass a revised Farm Bill known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012.

Hailed as encompassing "the most significant reforms in agricultural policy in decades," the 2012 Farm Bill will allegedly end direct payments to farmers, end farm payments to individuals and entities whose gross income exceeds $750,000 per year, and consolidate risk management programs, among other things. But many of the provisions of the new bill still favor large-scale producers of mostly commodity crops at the expense of small-scale farmers, who receive little, if any, financial incentives or benefits.

"Every five years or so, Congress promises a new, improved farm bill that will end unnecessary subsidies to big farmers, enhance the environment and actually do something to help small farmers and small towns," writes Robert B. Semple Jr. from The New York Times (NYT). "But what it usually does is find ways of disguising the old inequities, sending taxpayers (sic) dollars to wealthy farmers, accelerating the expansion of industrial farming, inflating land prices and further depopulating rural America."

Direct payments, for instance, is a program that, since 1996, has been doling out payments to farmers for commodity crops regardless of market value or production levels. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and others, these payments have been given to farmers regardless of need.

The government has also been providing insurance subsidies to farmers who grow commodity crops such as corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice, and canola, which not only causes more farmers to grow these crops, but also puts these farmers at an unfair, competitive advantage compared to farmers who grow various other crops.

This year's Farm Bill, the Senate version of which was passed on June 21, is not really all that different from previous Farm Bills, as it still subsidizes industrial crops at the expense of non-industrial crops. This means that an organic farmer producing non-commodity crops like carrots, sweet potatoes, and beets, for instance, will not receive nearly the benefits nor the incentives that an industrial grower of GM corn will receive.

To make matters worse, large-scale growers in general are also given preferential treatment over small-scale growers, including small-scale farmers growing commodity crops. According to data collected by NYT, the top 20 percent of farm subsidy recipients between 1995 and 2010 received 90 percent of the overall allotment of subsidies, while the remaining 80 percent collectively received the remaining paltry 10 percent.

These and other inequities in the federal agriculture policy are what keeps America's food system both unhealthy and dominated by corporate, agricultural interests with no regard for human health. And they are the very inequities that groups like EWG are calling on Congress to address in this year's farm bill.

You can read more about EWG's ideas for a more equitable Farm Bill here:
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2012/04/ewg-farm-bill-platform/

Sources for this article include:

http://www.ag.senate.gov/issues/farm-bill/

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.therepublic.com

Japanese Parliamentary Inquiry: Fukushima Disaster Caused by “Collusion” Among Government, Regulators and Tepco

Source

Japanese Parliamentary Inquiry: Fukushima Disaster Caused by “Collusion” Among Government, Regulators and Tepco
July 6, 2012 | Washington Blog

Official Investigation Found Earthquake Caused Damage, Reactor Design Dangerous, “Collusion” Caused Accident

Experts have noted for well over a year that the Fukushima reactors were damaged by the earthquake before the tsunami hit, showing that the entire GE Mark 1 reactor was fatally defective.
Reuters reports today:

Damage from the huge March 11, 2011, earthquake, and not just the ensuing tsunami, could not be ruled out as a cause of the accident, the panel added, a finding with serious potential implications as Japan seeks to bring idled reactors on line.
***

The panel’s finding that seismic damage may well have played a role could affect the restart of reactors that were taken offline, mostly for maintenance and safety checks, in the months since Fukushima. Japan is one of the world’s most quake-prone countries.

“We have proved that it cannot be said that there would have been no crisis without the tsunami,” Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and panel member, said in the report.
***

Experts have said that an active fault may lie under Kansai Electric Power Co’s Ohi plant in western Japan, whose No. 3 unit began supplying electricity to the grid early on Thursday. Ohi’s No. 4 unit will come on line later this month after the government approved the restarts to avoid a power shortage.

“This means that all of Japan’s reactors are vulnerable and require retro-fitting, calling into question the hasty decision of the (Prime Minister Yoshihiko) Noda cabinet to restart reactors before getting the lessons of Fukushima,” said Jeffrey Kingston, Asia studies director at Temple University in Tokyo.

This is especially relevant given that the March 2011 earthquake has likely “awakened”  Japanese faults, making another big earthquake more likely.

In addition, independent writers have noted since day one that cost-cutting, cover ups and collusion between the Japanese government and the plant operator were the main causes of the accident.  See this, this, this and this.

The official Japanese investigation agreed, saying that concluded that collusion was the cause of the disaster. As Reuters notes:

Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis was a preventable disaster resulting from “collusion” among the government, regulators and the plant operator, an expert panel said on Thursday, wrapping up an inquiry into the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
***

“The … Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco, and the lack of governance by said parties,” the panel said in an English summary of a 641-page Japanese document.

The report … put an official imprimatur on criticism of the cozy ties that have bound a powerful nexus of interests known as the “nuclear village”.

Regulators, it said, had been reluctant to adopt global safety standards that could have helped prevent the disaster ….

“Across the board, the Commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organization that deals with nuclear power. We found a disregard for global trends and a disregard for public safety,” the panel said.
***

The report by the experts – one of three panels looking into the Fukushima disaster – follows a six-month investigation involving more than 900 hours of hearings and interviews with more than 1,100 people, the first such inquiry of its kind.
***

In an effort to repair tattered public trust in the regulatory regime, the government will in a few months set up a more independent nuclear watchdog that will then draft new safety rules.
The report pointed to numerous missed opportunities to take steps to prevent the disaster, citing lobbying by the nuclear power companies as well as a “safety myth” mindset that permeated the industry and the regulatory regime as among the reasons for the failure to be prepared.
***

“As a result of inadequate oversight, the SA (Severe Accident) countermeasures implemented in Japan were practically ineffective compared to the countermeasures in place abroad, and actions were significantly delayed as a result,” it said.

Tepco came under heavy criticism in the report, partly for putting cost-cutting steps ahead of safety as nuclear power became less profitable over the years. “While giving lip service to a policy of ‘safety first’, in actuality, safety suffered at the expense of other management priorities,” the team said.

In a report on its internal investigation issued last month, Tepco denied responsibility, saying the big “unforeseen” tsunami was to blame – though it admitted that in hindsight it was insufficiently prepared.

Postscript: I congratulate the Japanese government for starting the process of coming clean … the first step in restoring trust.

Dr. Mercola Interviews Ellen Brown

Dr. Mercola Interviews Ellen Brown
July 5, 2012 | Dr. Mercola | Video Channel: mercola

Curation: How the Global Brain Evolves

Source

Curation: How the Global Brain Evolves
July 5, 2012 | Evolver.fm

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, review. Those who can’t review, tweet. Those who can’t tweet retweet.”

That quote is zinging around the internet this week. People are attributing it to Esquire, although I’m not finding it there. I first saw it, ironically, on Facebook. It’s also on Twitter, of course.

The sentiment expressed above is funny, in a mocking sort of way. It sounds good, but it also makes a real point: that people should do things instead of saying things, and that people whose contributions to the internet consist of criticism rather than creation — or, even worse, parroting other people’s criticism — are worthy of ridicule.

Unfortunately, it makes as little sense as the quote upon which it is based: “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach.”

This is what people have always done: pass along things we find worthwhile. Otherwise none of us would speak, let alone compose symphonies using the same notes or find that pesky Higgs boson. What’s changed today is that the urge to pass things along is much easier to act on, and that it applies equally to everything from the significant (“They think they found the Higgs Boson!”) to the insignificant (“Justin Bieber has hair again today!”). In every case, “retweet” is always just a tap away.

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Vaccine Theory Proven Wrong: Study by NIH

Source

Vaccine Theory Proven Wrong: Study by NIH
July 4, 2012 | Heidi Stevenson

The assumption that antibodies are necessary to combat viral diseases has been taken as fact. This study, though, turns that assumption on its ear. Vaccines may, in fact, work against the body’s ability to combat disease.

A new study produced by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) documents that the basic theory behind vaccination is wrong. That should not be surprising, since it was never shown to be true. Of course, that little detail never stopped the vaccine pushers. Now, though, there’s direct evidence that their unfounded claims have never been based on anything but false pronouncements.

It is held that adaptive immunity, that is, the creation of antibodies, is necessary to protect against many diseases. This idea is central to vaccination theory. The study produced in the journal Immunity⁽¹⁾ found that, in the case of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), that is not true. In fact, the implication is that no antibody response can be effective against rapidly replicating viruses, especially those associated with skin breaks like tetanus.

B cells are lymphocytes, white blood cells, required to fight infections. The study found that, though they most assuredly are necessary, their ability to produce antibodies does not always have anything to do with survival. In the case of VSV, antibodies were useless in fighting the infection. It was, instead, the B cells’ ability to incite macrophages (literally “big eaters”) that is successful in beating the infection. The authors wrote:

The results presented here contradict the current view that B cell-derived neutralizing antibodies are absolutely required to survive a primary cytopathic viral infection, such as that caused by VSV. This paradigm arose originally from experiments in B cell-deficient mice (Bachmann et al., 1994, 1997;Bründler et al., 1996; Gobet et al., 1988), which lack antibodies, but also have abnormal lymphoid tissue architecture and altered macrophage phenotype. Our experiments in mice that lack antibodies but possess B cells and normal lymphoid tissues confirm that both B cells and antibodies are critical to survive a systemic infection after i.v. bolus administration of VSV. However, only B cells are essential when VSV is encountered via the more “natural” s.c. [subcutaneous] route, whereas antibodies are neither needed nor sufficient for protection. [Emphases mine.]

It could not be clearer than that! The assumption had been made that, since B cells are required to fight infections, then their ability to produce antibodies is the key. However, this study demonstrates that it was never more than an assumption. Instead, it’s the B cell’s ability to stimulate macrophages that does the trick, at least in some cases.

There is further proof that this evidence is correct. As Green Med Info noted⁽²⁾, it has been well documented that high levels of antibodies are not necessarily protection against tetanus (lockjaw).

The authors of that study clearly state that the method of infection matters. The usual means of contracting tetanus is through a skin wound, in particular one that provides an anaerobic environment, as tends to be found in deep narrow wounds, like punctures. The body’s ability to fight a tetanus infection is more related to innate immune system functions, not acquired antibodies. The authors of this 1992 study state⁽³⁾:

The diagnosis of tetanus, nevertheless, should not be discarded solely on the basis of seemingly protective anti-tetanus titers.

Implications

The authors discuss their results in terms of the rabies virus. It’s a close relative of the vesicular stomatitis virus studied. They also bring up the fact that other viruses transmitted in the same manner as rabies, such as Japanese encephalitis, and eastern and western equine encephalitis viruses, are becoming more common, implying that their results could be significant in understanding how to deal with these diseases. They note that:

Most viral pathogens, including rabies and VSV, must breach the body’s external barriers to cause disease.

The implication is that we may have a false sense of security through the use of vaccinations and, perhaps more significantly, they may also be doing harm to the immune system.

Autoimmune Limitations

It should be obvious that the immune system can do only so much. If it’s forced into action through vaccinations, that means less is left to respond to genuine threats. The massive amount of vaccination being done today, and increasing at an accelerating rate, has never been examined in scientific studies. It’s simply presumed to be safe—but that presumption is based on nothing but wishful thinking, or worse, a desire to convince the public that it’s true so they can get on with producing yet more vaccines.

Lack of Proof of Vaccine Efficacy

The elevated levels of antibodies produced by vaccines, known as titers, have never been demonstrated as effective in preventing disease. Now, we have strong evidence that, at least in some instances, they don’t. They may even have the opposite effect by causing B-cells to waste effort in producting antibodies when they could far more effectively direct the inherent defensive system.

Vaccines Are Synthetic

Vaccines do not produce natural immunity. This study documents that it matters. Natural is superior to synthetic. It’s now well known that vaccinations do not produce consistent immunity, nor does what immunity they produce last long. To work at all, they must include toxic substances and ingredients that can produce autoimmune diseases. This is all known to be true. The fact is that a form of rheumatoid arthritis is produced in rats⁽⁴⁾ by injecting them with a vaccine adjuvant. To suggest that vaccines are harmless, or even relatively so, can only happen by refusing to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence otherwise.

We now have clear evidence that the theory behind vaccinations is simply wrong. Even if it should be true in some cases, it has never been demonstrated. One could hope that this combination of evidence against the theory and lack of evidence in favor of it would produce an immediate call from regulating agencies, like the NIH and CDC, to call a halt to vaccinations—at least until they can be proven to be safe and effective through independent studies.

One could hope that our health regulation agencies would do the right thing, but they haven’t before now, so this study will likely languish. Don’t expect to see any funding to duplicate it—unless they figure a way to use it to promote old vaccines or develop new ones.

 

Sources:

• ⁽¹⁾B Cell Maintenance of Subcapsular Sinus Macrophages Protects against a Fatal Viral Infection Independent of Adaptive Immunity
• ⁽²⁾Study Calls Into Question Primary Justification for Vaccines
• ⁽³⁾Severe tetanus in immunized patients with high anti-tetanus titers.
• ⁽⁴⁾Adjuvant Arthritis in the Rat

The “Empire Strikes Back” Against California’s GMO Initiative

The “Empire Strikes Back” Against California’s GMO Initiative
July 5, 2012 | Alliance for Natural Health

Charges are flying. Here are some facts.

As we have reported many times, GMO foods are not safe. Remember those rats fed GMO corn whose offspring were fine but whose grandchildren were sterile? Is this uncontrolled experiment on human beings a good idea?

The California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative, if enacted in November, would require GMO food—that is, all food containing genetically engineered ingredients—to be so labeled in the state. Consumers all over the US are in favor of this by wide margins. It is very important because, with the full power of the US government behind GMO, and huge amounts of money flowing back to Washington from GMO producers, the only way to stop the GMO juggernaut is to tell consumers what they are buying.

The usual suspects are mounting a huge disinformation campaign against the initiative. A leading coalition is StopCostlyFoodLabeling.com, the funding for which comes in part from the Council for Biotechnology Information—whose members include Monsanto, Dow, and other GMO companies.

Peggy Lemaux, an extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science at UC Berkeley, was recently quoted in a National Public Radio piece as opposing the initiative. She has credentials, but keep in mind that she’s a member of an agricultural science council that includes all the major biotech companies, and was recently the recipient of a financial award provided by Monsanto.

One of the chief charges against the initiative at the moment is that it will be used by bounty-hunting trial lawyers to file abusive lawsuits against food companies, including natural food companies, arguing that they are selling foods or supplements that contain undisclosed GMOs. This charge is designed to cause division within the natural health and natural foods community by frightening off companies that might normally support the initiative.

Is there any truth to their allegation? Will “Label GMO,” if passed, turn into a rich source of income for racketeering—legal bucket shops and bounty-hunting lawyers? In short, no. This is not a valid charge.

Currently there are many abusive lawsuits going on in California, many of them associated with an earlier initiative passed in 1986 called Proposition 65 (formally titled “The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986”). This poorly designed and poorly written law too often allows lawyers to make false charges against businesses—particularly supplement companies—for not adequately warning consumers about trace amounts of heavy metals or other chemicals in their products. It also allows plaintiffs to keep a “bounty” of 25% of whatever civil penalties are collected.

The vague rules governing the law and the bounty seem to encourage some lawyers to try to make a fast buck by shaking down companies for a settlement prior to going to court. This is possible because, among other problems, Prop 65 has defined allowable levels of these contaminants for only about 300 of the over 800 different chemical elements covered by the law. Not only are some of those defined limits unrealistically low, but undefined limits mean that any trace may be considered toxic and actionable.

This is not good science. Metals and other such elements naturally occur in food; the more natural the product, the more likely that it will contain what might mistakenly be taken for a contaminant. Our bodies are designed to remove elements such as lead every day so long as we are not being flooded with them. It is bad enough for a company to be expected to test for over 800 different elements and compounds, but to do so with defined standards on only 300 of them is indefensible.

Label GMO, the current initiative, is not at all like Prop 65. The differences have been carefully delineated in a paper by James C. Cooper, PhD in economics from Emory University and JD magna cum laude from George Mason School of Law, where he is currently an adjunct law professor. Among the important points Cooper makes:

1. Label GMO provides seven years in which producers can gradually reduce the GMO exposure of their products from no more than 5% to zero.
2. So long as food or supplement producers have a statement from their supplier stating that to the supplier’s best belief there are no GMO elements, the producer is immune from suit.
3. The same is true if the food is certified organic and certified GMO-free by an independent organization, or falls into some other categories—the producer is immune from GMO labeling liability. No doubt it will make sense for some food producers to help create an independent certifier.
4. Once a violation has been identified, the producer also has 30 days in which to correct it, in which case there is no liability.
5. There is no “bounty” for plaintiffs who initiate lawsuits.

Professor Cooper is not an activist supporting the Label GMO Initiative. He is a respected scholar pointing out that Label GMO should not be crudely tarnished with Prop 65’s failings. Indeed, Label GMO was drafted with Prop 65’s failings in mind. Although both involve labeling and both allows lawsuits, they are otherwise very different laws.

The opponents of the Label GMO initiative—led and financed, we can expect, by GMO producers working as surreptitiously as possible—will do whatever they can to defeat it. They know the initiative is currently popular with consumers and voters. Consumers naturally want to know what is GMO food and what is not, and feel, rightly, that they have a right to know. The GMO producers can be expected to use scare tactics and to try to enlist natural food companies on their side, or at least blunt their support for the initiative, by using any charge they think will stick. Our job is to give you, and California voters in particular, the facts, pure and simple. Please read Dr. Cooper’s full report for all the facts about why Label GMO is not “another Prop 65.”

And stay tuned. This is just one battle in what will be a long, drawn out, expensive conflict.

Gates Foundation Depopulation Summit Demands Global Approval

© occupycorporatism.com

Gates Foundation Depopulation Summit Demands Global Approval
July 5, 2012 | Sussane Posel

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) are focusing on population control through their Global Health Development Programs. By using citizens in under-developed nations, like Africa and India, was Guinea pigs for their research and development for “new interventions such as vaccines, drugs and diagnostics”, these globalists hope to ensure their family planning schemes are effective.

Melinda Gates has made family planning and the population control agenda her personal mission . She justifies her cause by claiming that 100,000 women die in child birth from unintended pregnancies. Although this statistic has no scientific basis, since it sounds good and mainstream media do not check facts, it has helped the BMGF team up with the British government to raise more than $4 billion to fun depopulation programs under the guise of bringing contraceptives to under-developed nations.

The BMGF assert that by 2050 “the global population is expected to grow to over 9 billion people” and this is unacceptable to them. By applying pressure to social programs and resources, the BMGF want to use family planning as an investment for all national governments globally.

Strategies to accomplish their goals include:

•  Using financial influence to force governments and policymakers to implement their family planning schemes
•   Empower NGOs who promote family planning propaganda
•   Coerce the integration of family planning into all “humanitarian” efforts by using funds from the UN Global Fund
•   Pour money into efforts that further family planning through national policy controls that adhere to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals

BMGF has partnered with drug corporations like Shanghai Dahua Pharmaceuticals in China to develop implantable fertility controls that will be used in over 20 developing countries to curb population growth.
The injectable Depo-Provera is being sold to under-developed nations and being administered by healthcare workers and nonmedical providers, or by the women themselves. Policy and training systems are underway to ensure these drugs are utilized in areas like the sub-Saharan Africa. By using these areas as testing grounds for new fertility drugs, as well as forcible sterilization schemes, the BMGF are focusing on preventative situations over dealing with abortable pregnancies which become complicated.

On July 11th, the BMGF will attend the UK’s Department for International Development Family Planning Summit (FPS). Ministers of State and leaders from over 60 countries will join with major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to make firm commitments to addressing the global short-fall in family planning provision to be agreed upon so that population growth issues can be dealt with by the global Elite.

Prior to this summit, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the modern version of the eugenic program founded by Margaret Sanger and Bill Gates’ father in the 1950s, will focus their efforts on coercing young people into supporting their family planning scheme by debating teenage pregnancy, unwanted births and maternal morality as defined by the eugenics ideal.

According to the FPS agenda “young people have to be at the heart of driving forward the ambitious developments in family planning provision which the Summit sets out to stimulate.”

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UN Population Fund, described the proposals at the FPS as the agenda to “transform” family planning into a global movement. Population control, with the assistance of the BMGF and their funders will build an army of coercive tactics that aim to reinvent the movement to ensure its success.

Osotimehin claims that family planning “enables women to take charge of their lives and for young people to plan their lives. It empowers a woman to do what they want to do in terms of the number of children they want to have and can afford.”

While an estimated 40% of pregnancies in the developing world are classified by BMGF as “unwanted” they are focusing on eventually eliminating this number to reduce the world’s population. Africa, a big focus for the BMGF is being targeted along with Muslim nations.

The BMGF are admonishing the global community to support their efforts with the backing of the UN. They want full commitments by which they can hold countries accountable if their guidelines are not fully carried out. While claiming to provide “voluntary” family planning, they assert that with fewer children to care for, the poverty rates in under-developed nations will lower.

However, they are simply advocating less people be available to use natural resources, which is a qualm of the global Elite.

Having hijacked a movement, the BMGF and the UN are successfully beginning the process of controlling population growth in under-developed nations. As their popularity grows and their agendas are met, those same measures will make their way to developing nations like the US. Right now, women in the US have control over their ability to procreate. And while organizations like Planned Parenthood are working to trick women in believing that the mark of a woman is to have the opportunity to abort an unborn child, the choice is still up to the individual woman.

If the BMGF have their way, that ability to choose will soon be revoked.

Study Shows How Organic Tomatoes Exceed Conventional In Antioxidant Value

© preventdisease.com

Study Shows How Organic Tomatoes Exceed Conventional In Antioxidant Value
July 5, 2012 | April McCarthy

Tomatoes grown by organic methods contain more phenolic compounds than those grown using commercial standards, say researchers.

The study -- published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry -- analysed the phenolic profiles of Daniela tomatoes grown either using 'conventional' or organic methods, finding that those grown under organic conditions contained significantly higher levels of phenolic compounds than those grown conventionally.

"The nutrient composition of plants, including secondary plant metabolites, may be affected by different production systems, such as organic and conventional," noted the researchers, led by senior author Rosa Lamuela from the University of Barcelona.

"Organic farming doesn't use nitrogenous fertilizers; as a result, plants respond by activating their own defence mechanisms, increasing the levels of all antioxidants," explained study lead Anna Vallverdú Queralt.

Organic vs Conventional: Controversial

The fundamental differences between organic and conventional agricultural systems are in fertilization strategy and soil fertility management, which in theory affect the nutrient composition in plants and provide healthier better tasting produce.

However, years of research investigating the nutrient content of plants grown using the two systems have generated largely contradictory results. A 2009 UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) review investigating the nutritional content of organic and conventional produce sparked controversy after it concluded that there was no difference.

The FSA research concluded: "there is no evidence to support the selection of organically produced foodstuffs to increase the intake of specific nutrients or nutritionally relevant substances."

However, a second review published by the French food agency AFSSA completely contradicted the findings of the FSA, concluding that "organic plant products contain more dry matter and minerals -- such as iron and magnesium -- and more antioxidant polyphenols like phenols and salicylic acid".

Several smaller studies have since backed up the findings of the AFSSA review by reporting higher levels of certain nutrients in organically grown produce including strawberries .

Lamuela and her team have previously reported organic tomato juice to be more nutritious than those grown in the standard commercial, and revealed that ketchup made from organic tomatoes contains higher levels of beneficial antioxidant compounds.

Study details

Using liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, the team identified 34 different phenolic compounds in tomatoes, before comparing them.

They analysed the profile differences for the content of flavonols (kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside, rutin, and quercetin), flavanones (naringenin and naringenin-7-O-glucoside), flavones (apigenin-7-O-glucoside), and hydroxycinnamic acids (ferulic, p-coumaric, caffeic, and chlorogenic acids.

Comparing the analyses of tomatoes from conventional and organic production systems demonstrated statistically higher levels (P < 0.05) of phenolic compounds in organic tomatoes.

Lamuela said more studies of clinical evidence are still needed to be able to state that organic products are truly better for our health than conventional ones. The researcher added that she would like to carry out a study with humans comparing organic and conventional tomato consumers.

April McCarthy is a community journalist playing an active role reporting and analyzing world events to advance our health and eco-friendly initiatives.

Sources:
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Organic Apples Beat Conventionals On Antioxidants

The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell - Full Version

The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell - Full Version
March 17, 2011 |  prussell117



Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings. He shows why mind is more fundamental than matter, and the the key to this shift is the revolution in our understanding of the light.

The excerpted version (10 mins) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqSxHzqm1pw

DVD available from my http://peterrussell.com/store

Bees Can 'Turn Back Time,' Reverse Brain Aging

Old bees collect nectar and pollen. Most
bees start doing this job when they are 3-4
weeks old, and after that they age very
quickly. Their bodies and wings become
worn and they loose the ability to learn
new things. Most food collector bees die
after about 10 days. (Credit: Christofer Bang)

July 3, 2012: Bees Can 'Turn Back Time,' Reverse Brain Aging - Science Daily

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) — Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that older honey bees effectively reverse brain aging when they take on nest responsibilities typically handled by much younger bees. While current research on human age-related dementia focuses on potential new drug treatments, researchers say these findings suggest that social interventions may be used to slow or treat age-related dementia.

In a study published in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology, a team of scientists from ASU and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, led by Gro Amdam, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences, presented findings that show that tricking older, foraging bees into doing social tasks inside the nest causes changes in the molecular structure of their brains.

"We knew from previous research that when bees stay in the nest and take care of larvae -- the bee babies -- they remain mentally competent for as long as we observe them," said Amdam. "However, after a period of nursing, bees fly out gathering food and begin aging very quickly. After just two weeks, foraging bees have worn wings, hairless bodies, and more importantly, lose brain function -- basically measured as the ability to learn new things. We wanted to find out if there was plasticity in this aging pattern so we asked the question, 'What would happen if we asked the foraging bees to take care of larval babies again?"

During experiments, scientists removed all of the younger nurse bees from the nest -- leaving only the queen and babies. When the older, foraging bees returned to the nest, activity diminished for several days. Then, some of the old bees returned to searching for food, while others cared for the nest and larvae. Researchers discovered that after 10 days, about 50 percent of the older bees caring for the nest and larvae had significantly improved their ability to learn new things.

Amdam's international team not only saw a recovery in the bees' ability to learn, they discovered a change in proteins in the bees' brains. When comparing the brains of the bees that improved relative to those that did not, two proteins noticeably changed. They found Prx6, a protein also found in humans that can help protect against dementia -- including diseases such as Alzheimer's -- and they discovered a second and documented "chaperone" protein that protects other proteins from being damaged when brain or other tissues are exposed to cell-level stress.

In general, researchers are interested in creating a drug that could help people maintain brain function, yet they may be facing up to 30 years of basic research and trials.

"Maybe social interventions -- changing how you deal with your surroundings -- is something we can do today to help our brains stay younger," said Amdam. "Since the proteins being researched in people are the same proteins bees have, these proteins may be able to spontaneously respond to specific social experiences."

Amdam suggests further studies are needed on mammals such as rats in order investigate whether the same molecular changes that the bees experience might be socially inducible in people.

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Is American Medicine a War Crime

7000 Americans Died
Waiting for the Heart
We Gave This Man

July 3, 2012: Is American Medicine a War Crime - Veterans Today

Cheney, Heart Transplants for War Criminals But Not Working Americans
———————–

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

Last week, while looking into the Supreme Court decision on “Obamacare,” I stumbled onto some startling information.  Everything we think we know about insurance and medical care is a lie, all that stands between you and being murdered by a bankster is a doctor who may or may not choose to save your life, even if he or she has to break the rules.

These rules exist by the millions, rules by hospitals, by insurance companies, by the VA, by Medicare and Medicaid, all of them deny care, deny drugs, deny lifesaving procedures and the rationale is generally based on “not being former Vice President Dick Cheney” who is wanted for war crimes in dozens of countries.
Imagine the hospital team that had to decide who got the new heart beating in Cheney’s chest.  Do we give it to a young mechanic or a man whose heart failed 40 years ago, someone who has caused death and destruction for decades, a man who can’t travel because he faces arrest and execution at the hands of any genuinely free nation on earth.

This is a man accused, very rightly so, of starting wars, ordering killings, responsible for the slaughter of over a million people, the death of thousands of servicemen, the tens of thousands of suicides (numbers no longer reported are that high), the disability of half a million or more and the collapse of the world economy.
He didn’t do it by himself but is considered, with people like Dick Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and George W Bush behind him, part of the biggest criminal cabal in world history.  Sometimes I think TV is filled with shows about Hitler and the Third Reich only so Cheney’s face won’t be there whenever the term “mass murder” is mentioned.

As the rules stand now, war criminals come out on top every time, they get the heart, they get the experimental artificial heart no one else could have, they get flown around in helicopters, they have Secret Service escorts when, in truth, the majority of people in the world are wondering why he hasn’t been hanged already.

Cheney is just one of the inequities.

The big thing is that, for many decades now, health care has been rationed out.  First of all, fewer and fewer employers in the US have comprehensive health care insurance.  Only members of unions have insurance, though not like in the past.  Currently 10% of public workers and 7% of private workers in the United States belong to trade unions.

All others covered workers, estimated at another 14%, have limited plans that deny things like transplants, exotic cancer treatments and newer medications which are, in most cases, more effective than those insurance companies authorize.

Let’s get those numbers straight.  It isn’t 60% that are insured but closer to 8% with “full insurance” while the total with full and partial coverage comes to around 24%.  In addition to this, 31% of the population, giving us that other figure, has limited coverage through Tricare, ChampVA, Veterans Health Clinics, Medicare and Medicaid.

Among these, those on VA coverage and Medicaid receive the lowest standard of care, comparable to that of the uninsured.

In a recent study by Harvard Medical School, patients suffering with strokes or heart attacks who have no insurance, but who go to the hospital, and many don’t, stand a 50% higher chance of dying.

Figures for Medicaid were omitted from the study.  We wonder why.

Veterans wait as long as one to two years for some common procedures and even those few who qualify for full coverage, totally disabled vets and former POWs, received limited care, few medications available, waits to see specialists for up to 2 years and waits for common procedures of up to 15 years.

Most of these individuals were not covered until after an average of 12 years of processing, the Veterans who applied for disability compensation, and others are expected to pay for services at low market costs and are pushed into bankruptcy just as with private patients.

40% of bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills, 50 percent of those by patients choosing to pay “out of pocket” for life saving care that was denied by their insurance carrier as “experimental” or “off list.”
Then we have the invisible uninsured, those who don’t hang out at Social Services or Welfare offices, people who have worked and had their jobs outsourced to Asian sweatshops, this is millions of Americans now, people who own homes, or used to, who have families, who have always worked, some for very high wages, who realize the truth.  Either stay well or die, this is the real choice they have and this is how you hear them talk.

Their children never get glasses, never see a dentist, they never get preventative care and many who are in this position were, only a year or two before, owners of large suburban homes, had 2 or more cars, vacation homes, boats, took cruises, then, with the Bush collapse, they were the first to go.  They are America’s “new poor.”

First the job hunts and living off credit cards, then the minimum wage jobs and eventually half of those disappeared.  A PhD doesn’t guarantee the ability to work at MacDonalds making burgers and fries in most of America.

At one time, when collapse came, you could move, California, Florida or to Houston to work in the “oil patch.”  California of today is broke, Florida is broke, overcrowded and barely American anyway and the oil business has been moved, to a large extent, offshore.

What we have left is the bastard child, Obamacare.  Question is, did he want this program, the one that carries his name, or is this the compromise he settled for that would allow GOP controlled banksters and insurance fraudsters to force Americans to buy insurance in a trade off to save the lives, save the sight, save the teeth of a generation of American children, in this case, the remnants of what America used to have for a middle class.

Is Obamacare good?  No, it is too much of a compromise, living proof that many Democrats, called “Blue Dogs” can be bought just as easy as the scamster Republicans.

What is the real answer?  It is simple, we build an efficient system that makes treatment available equally to Dick Cheney or your own child so that you don’t have to watch your small child wither and die because he isn’t drowning in money made by killing thousands, rigging defense bids or ordering assassinations.
You think Americans take care of their own?  Do you own a car?  Do you think the people lining our streets claiming to be veterans starving to death are all lying?

It is 95 degrees here in Ohio.  Skin art, known as the tattoo, is something I recognize.  When the “sign holder” has a bulldog or “screaming eagle” on one of the arms that says, “Family Starving, Will Work for Food” I take him seriously.

I know he has been to see a bureaucrat or been to the local Veterans Service Commission, our local one seems to have misplaced $7 million in funds over the past few  years.

Want to go to a veterans organization?   Need a drink, want to gamble, that’s their business, that and spending millions in dues fighting court battles over religious issues, memorial crosses placed on highways, left under bridges, each one brings out lawyers willing to spend enough to send a thousand children to college to fight for months over idiocy.

Remember these minor things:

• Insurance companies and the VA ration care and always have
• Poor die in hospitals, figures don’t lie
• The best of us don’t go to hospitals at all, we die peacefully, screaming in pain and are taken away to have our bodies dumped in a field.  That is how the real America works, more and more that way each day.
• Veterans are scum to be spat on, mistreated and forgotten.  If they were decent soldiers they would have all died because we were sick of hearing from them 30 days after they left anyway.  I only speak this way because of 19 years of working with vets and managing an organization with 600,000 of them.
• If you get decent care, you have a doctor who learned to “play the system” and get around insurance company rules, be thankful
• If you think Obamacare is bringing “rationed medicine,” you belong in a mental institution or are perhaps in one already

We have thousands of nurses in America now unemployed, a great secret.  We close and tear down hospitals all the time.

Drugs cost about 3% of what we sell them for.

There is no reason for private insurance, it is only another term for Wall Street Bankster.  They do nothing positive, nothing but kill Americans.

The worst union in the US is the doctors union.

Every new system set up breeds a new group of crooks who manage to steal it dry.  The only answer is full Socialized Medicine or Single Payer with community health centers, full accountability for those who don’t take care of themselves and a rope to hang those who steal from the people.

China uses a bullet in the back of the head, I can live with that method too.

Our next step is ending imports, leaving the Federal Reserve System, bringing our troops back home, closing our borders, ending drug use, returning all news and entertainment to real people, not NWO outfits and letting Americans get back to what they are supposed to be doing, working, getting paid for it and getting a fair shake in the process.