Toxic chemicals in personal care products causing 'epidemic' of skin allergies

© Natural News

Toxic chemicals in personal care products causing 'epidemic' of skin allergies
July 14, 2013 | Natural News | Ethan A. Huff

Be careful which facial creams, shampoos, moisturizing soaps and other personal care products you buy and use, as many of them apparently contain a chemical linked to causing what some experts have now dubbed an "epidemic" of skin allergies and other dermal issues. A new report compiled by dermatologists reveals how the preservative chemical methylisothiazolinone, or MI for short, has led to a massive increase in eczema and other skin allergies in recent years, and calls on regulators to ban the chemical.

Long used in many conventional care products as a deterrent for bacteria and other harmful pathogens, and as an alternative to toxic parabens, MI is generally recognized by regulatory authorities in both the U.S. and Europe as safe and non-toxic. But its practical use in the real world tells a much different story, with many people reporting severe allergic and other negative reactions when exposed to it. The situation has gotten so out of control, according to reports, that some dermatologists are now calling for an immediate moratorium.

"We are in the midst of an outbreak of allergy to a preservative which we have not seen before in terms of scale in our lifetime," says Dr. John McFadden, a consultant dermatologist at St. John's Institute of Dermatology in London, as quoted by the Telegraph. "Many of our patients have suffered acute dermatitis with redness and swelling of the face. I would ask the cosmetics industry not to wait for legislation but to get on and address the problem before the situation gets worse."

Levels of MI in personal care products have increased over the years 

In years past, MI was mixed with other preservatives, so its concentration was relatively low. But as these other chemicals were phased out due to their own tendencies to cause skin allergies, MI stuck around as an isolated chemical. According to the Telegraph, concentrations of MI in personal care products today are as high as 100 parts per million (ppm), up 2,500 percent from around 4 ppm in previous formulations.

"This new epidemic of allergic contact dermatitis from isothiazolinones is causing harm to European citizens," wrote Margarida Goncalo, President of the European Society of Contact Dermatitis (ESCD), in a recent letter to the European Commission. "Urgent action is required."

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a consumer watchdog organization, MI is moderately hazardous, having been linked to various allergies and immune disorders. Studies identified by the group also link MI to brain cell damage, and the chemical has been implicated in causing nerve damage in humans.

Avoid products that contain MI by consulting the GoodGuide 

Some companies have already begun to quietly and voluntarily phase out the use of MI in their products, but many other brands such as Nivea, Wet Ones, and Dove still use it, according to reports. Even some popular "natural" brands like Seventh Generation and Burt's Bees use MI in their product formulations.

You can view a complete list of known products that contain MI by visiting GoodGuide.com:
http://www.goodguide.com

"[A] brief exposure to methylisothiazolinone, a widely used industrial and household biocide, is highly toxic to cultured neurons," explains a 2002 study out of the University of Pittsburgh that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. "Because of their widespread use, the neurotoxic consequences of both acute and chronic human exposure to these toxins need to be evaluated."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

http://metro.co.uk

http://www.ewg.org

http://www.annmariegianni.com

http://www.skininc.com

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

2012: The Top Fifteen Selling Vaccines

2012: The Top Fifteen Selling Vaccines
July 14, 2013 | Activist Post | Norma Erickson

The ‘medical miracle’ of vaccines has proven quite miraculous on at least one front, the financial one. Investors in the manufacture, distribution and administration of vaccines have reaped handsome rewards since the creation of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA).

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

The topic of vaccine safety became prominent during the mid 1970s with increases in lawsuits filed on behalf of those presumably injured by the diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT) vaccine. Legal decisions were made and damages awarded despite the lack of scientific evidence to support vaccine injury claims. As a result of these decisions, liability and prices soared, and several manufacturers halted production. A vaccine shortage resulted and public health officials became concerned about the return of epidemic disease. To reduce liability and respond to public health concerns, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) in 1986.

This change in liability created an environment where vaccine manufacturers could evolve from threatening to get out of the vaccine production business to generating the following sales in 2012:(1)

1. Prevnar 13® – $3.718 billion – Pfizer
2. Gardasil® – $1.900 billion – Merck & Co/Sanofli Pasteur MSD
3. PENTAct-HIB – $1.522 billion – Sanofli/Sanofli Pasteur MSD
4. Infanrix/Pediarix – $1.183 billion – by GlaxoSmithKline
5. Fluzone – $1.152 billion – by Sanofli/Sanofli Pasteur MSD
6. Hepatitis franchise – $986 million – by GlaxoSmithKline
7. Varivax – $846 million – by Merck & Co/Sanofli Pasteur MSD
8. Menactra – $735 million – by Sanofli/Sanofli Pasteur
9. Zostavax – $651 million – by Merck & Co/Sanofli Pasteur
10. RotaTeq® – $648 million – by Merck & Co/Sanofli Pasteur
11. Synflorix® – $587 million – by GlaxoSmithKline
12. Pneumovax®23 – $580 million – by Merck & Co/Sanofli Pasteur
13. Rotarix – $549 million – by GlaxoSmithKline
14. Adacel – $469 million – by Sanofli/Sanofli Pasteur MSD
15. Prevnar – $399 million – by Pfizer

For the five producers of the top 15 vaccines, this is a total of $15.925 billion; not at all bad for an industry that was threatening to close down operations 30 years ago. Apparently, limited liability does wonders for the bottom line.

Whether the miraculous nature of the limited liability vaccination programs instituted since the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was created extends to safety and efficacy remains hotly debated.

 For instance, in 1980 there were three recommended vaccines given in five shots before age 2; DPT (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) and OPV (oral polio vaccine). The autism rate in 1980 was estimated at 2/10,000. Now, children could receive as many as 24 shots by 2 years of age and five shots in a single visit (2) and the autism rate is now 1/88. (3)

No, this information does not prove causation. However, any reasonable person can see that a correlation exists. This correlation needs to be thoroughly investigated by people who are not stakeholders in vaccines or vaccination programs.

Until that research is completed, exercise your right to informed consent.(4) Do your research.

Get these questions answered before you decide if a vaccine is right for you or your child:

• How serious is the disease being vaccinated against?
• What are the chances of being exposed to this disease?
• What is the normal outcome of contracting this disease?
• What is the worst case scenario of contracting this disease?
• What are the ingredients in this vaccine?
• Do I have an allergy to any of the vaccine ingredients?
• How effective is this vaccine?
• What are the adverse effects currently associated with this vaccine?
• Have I experienced an adverse reaction to any prior vaccination?
• Does my family’s health history make me more likely to suffer an adverse reaction to this vaccine?
• Does my current state of health indicate I can be vaccinated now, should wait to vaccinate later, or not vaccinate at all?
• What are the alternative ways to protect against this disease?

Above all, remember vaccines can and do cause injury or death for some individuals.

Don’t play vaccine roulette – evaluate the risks, benefits, and alternatives – be a wise medical consumer!

References:

Top 15 Selling Vaccines of 2012, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, July 2013
History of Vaccine Schedule, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, reviewed by Paul A. Offit, MD
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), CDC
Informed Consent, Medline Plus, National Institutes of Health

Norma Erickson is the President of SaneVax, Inc. Please visit for the latest vaccine and health news.

Interview with Vandana Shiva: Sowing Seeds of Health, Hope and Humanity

Interview with Vandana Shiva: Sowing Seeds of Health, Hope and Humanity
July 13, 2013 | Green Med Info | Linda Sechrest

Interview by Linda Sechrist

About Vandana Shiva, Ph.D.: a scientist, philosopher, environmental activist, author and eco-feminist. The founder of Navdanya, a seed freedom movement in India to promote native seeds, Shiva is a formidable opponent in the global battle over genetically modified seed, which she links to problems in our ecology, economy and humanity. Shiva is a keynote speaker at the Great Lakes Bioneers Chicago conference this month.

You believe that we need a new paradigm for living on the Earth because the old one is not working. What does that new paradigm look like?

The old paradigm is based on fragmented thought, mechanistic science and on a deepening division between humans on the basis of class—the 1 percent versus 99 percent of the Occupy movement—as well as on gender, race and greed as a virtue. The emerging paradigm, which many of us are now seeing, is based on interconnectedness and equality as diversity, rather than on uniformity, as well as sharing and caring as virtues.

How does your education in quantum theory and the science of interconnection play into the new paradigm?

I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the Foundations of Quantum Theory, especially the aspect of non-locality or nonseparability, which acknowledges the interconnectedness of the universe.

Quantum theory—the science of interconnectedness, which is the nature of reality—teaches us nonseparability, which is built into the new science of quantum theory and the new biology. Separation between humans and nature was intrinsic to the old mechanistic assumptions developed during the 1600s and 1700s by French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes; English scientist, Francis Bacon; and English physicist, Sir Isaac Newton.

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, developed by Albert Einstein and his colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, has shown that when a quantum system is subdivided and the two subsystems are separated in space and time, their state is nonseparable. I agree with physicists such as Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Ernst Pauli and David Bohm, who stressed the non-separable wholeness of the universe of physical phenomena.

Which epic myths are you debunking about our industrialized food system?

The first myth is that it is efficient. Using 10 units of energy to produce one unit of food as energy is not efficient.

The second myth is that it improves farmers' livelihoods. In India, 270,000 farmers have been pushed to suicide, and the majority of family-owned farms in the U.S. have disappeared.

The third myth is that it produces more food. Our study and numerous studies conducted by the United Nations show that ecological farming produces more food.

Most industrial-farmed food now is dedicated to ethanol production for cars and to feeding animals in factory farms. It is not food for people. We have food deserts in cities and in the countryside.

What is the Declaration on Seed Freedom? Why is it important that people sign it?

It is important for everyone to sign the Declaration on Seed Freedom because seed is the first link in the food chain. If we lose seed freedom, we lose food freedom. Seed freedom is threatened by genetically engineered seeds, which are contaminating our farms, thus closing the option for GMO-free food for all.

The seed freedom of farmers is threatened when, after contaminating our crops, corporations sue farmers for "stealing their property." It is also threatened by the deliberate transformation of the seed from a renewable, self-generative resource to a non-renewable, patented commodity. The most extreme case of non-renewable seed is the "Terminator Technology", developed with the aim to create sterile seed.

Thirty years ago, most North American and European seed companies were small, family-owned businesses that specialized in varieties adapted to regional climates, with resistance to local pests and diseases. Today, just 10 companies control 30 percent of the commercial seed market worldwide. Just five vegetable seed companies control 75 percent of the global vegetable seed market. Some of these companies, such as Monsanto, are imposing genetically engineered, patented seed on small farmers and are denying citizens' labeling. In effect, they are robbing us of our most fundamental freedom, our food freedom.

What is the Earth Democracy movement?

I refer to the new paradigm as Earth Democracy, which recognizes that the Earth and all her beings, including humans, have rights and freedoms; that we are interconnected in a web of life, and are all members of an Earth Family. Earth Democracy enables us to make transitions to a living democracy, living economy and living cultures that celebrate life.

How is what is happening in India important here in the U.S.?

The U.S. and India have become deeply intertwined through dominant corporate globalization and Earth Democracy. Monsanto; Cargill, Incorporated; and Walmart are trying to take over India's food and agriculture like they took over food and agriculture in the U.S. Our movements to resist corporate takeover of our seed, our food and our markets need to be connected.

Can Navdanya, the seed freedom movement you founded in India, be repeated in other countries?

At the Navdanya biodiversity and organic farm in Doon Valley, in Uttarakhand, North India [set at the foothills of the Himalayas], more than 630 varieties of plants are growing, butterflies are flourishing, and earthworms fertilize our soils. People from all over the world come here to learn and observe. For example, our A-Z course on organic farming attracted 55 people from 12 countries.

My colleagues in Italy have started Navdanya there. And the Seed Freedom movement spreading across the world shows that what is being done by Navdanya in India is relevant worldwide.

How has your experience at Navdanya shown you that the future of cities, in any country, lies in gardens and organic connections to the countryside?

As we evolved Navdanya on the basis of diversity and decentralization to offer an alternative to the monoculture and centralization, it became evident that cities can be sources of their own food through urban gardens, and can create their own foodshed by more intimate connections with the countryside. This improves the well-being of the country, those who farm in the country, and those who live in cities. It is a concrete step towards creating Earth Democracy.

What has led you to the conclusion that living cities should be cultivated organically and that living food is the basis for living communities?

Over the past three decades, beginning with my study on the Green Revolution, I realized that chemicals, monoculture and giant farms as the basis of food security constitute a lie that we have been sold.

During the past 25 years, my Navdanya experience has helped me to realize that good farming is like gardening. Biodiverse small farms produce more food and nutrition than large industrial farms. Navdanya's concept of "Health per Acre" measures nutrition and quality of food instead of the "yield" of commodities.

Industrial food has created a killing culture, which is killing biodiversity, the soil, farmers and our health. Organic agriculture creates living food and living communities.

How does ecological connectedness promote a sense of common humanity?

Ecological interconnectedness is based on Earth citizenship. As citizens of the Earth, we breathe the same air, drink water in the same hydrological cycle, and eat food from a common food web. This makes us aware of our common humanity, and our common rights and responsibilities to the Earth and each other.

Do you have any suggestions for how people in the U.S. can fight for food labeling of genetically engineered food?

The California vote is only one step in labeling of GMOs. Other steps need to be based on creating local, organic, GMO-free food systems.

You have fought Coca-Cola and other multinational giants over the privatization of water in your native India. Now you are doing battle with Monsanto over genetically modified seeds. What keeps you going?

We have a beautiful text in India, the Bhagavad Gita, in which [Hindu deity/avatar] Krishna gives a simple lesson: Do not measure the fruit of your action; rather, measure your obligation of action. You have to find out what is the right thing to do. That is your duty. Whether you win or lose is not an issue. The obligation to do the right thing is the issue.

From childhood, I have been an ecologist and nature lover. My right thing and duty is to protect the diversity of species and their intrinsic value. Their integrity is vital, as are the rights of our farmers to have seed—the most fundamental source of livelihood in a poor country. Today, 80 percent of the world's food is produced by small farmers such as those that we have in India. Our small farmers are 1.2 billion East Indians.

I believe that we have forgotten what smallness means when it is multiplied many times. We've also become accustomed to the dinosaur mentality. We only see the big and have forgotten that dinosaurs are extinct.

To learn more about Navdanya and its mission to protect nature and people's rights to knowledge, biodiversity, water and food, visit Navdanya.org. For information and to register for the Great Lakes Bioneers Chicago conference, visit BioneersChicago.org.

About the Author 

Linda Sechrist is the Senior Staff writer, editor and National Director for Community Outreach for Natural Awakenings, a healthy lifestyle magazine actively publishing in 80 U.S. major markets, with 3 million readers a month. She is the founder of ItsAllAboutWe.com and radio host of the upcoming Greenmedinfo.com sponsored show, part of the World Health Freedom forum, the official radio network of the National Health Federation.

Video: Palestinian students call on US students to recognize their conditions– and divest

Video: Palestinian students call on US students to recognize their conditions– and divest
July 12, 2013 | Mondoweiss | Joshua Tartakovsky


I produced this film "Palestinian Students Call to Divest for Justice" along with two friends from al Ma'sara, near Bethlehem, Mahmoud Elddin and Moath al Lahham. We wanted to bring the difficult reality of life under occupation as Palestinian students experience it to the gaze of the wider public as the debate at the University of California Berkeley was heating up on a student senate resolution calling on the school to divest from companies profiting off the occupation, a resolution that passed three months ago.

Producer Mahmoud Elddin writes:

This film is important for us because we want to show other students around the world what is wrong here and what Palestinian students face everyday and how much they are suffering just to arrive to the university.

Moath Al Lahham:

I think making the film was very important for me in some points! Firstly; because it relates to the Israeli violations against student's rights and we helped expose the ugly face of the occupation, especially to American students. Many American students do not have enough information about the reality of the conflict, so, I felt very happy about doing this film because it was a challenge for me (to fight for good in the conflict between the power of a just cause and an oppressive power).

Secondly; by making that film, I know that we can help our issue directly by divestment especially as it was passed by the voting of students. This voting can help building peace.
On the other hand I found that "humanity" still exist in the world because there are groups or campaigns working in supporting humanity and human rights in Palestine, like the campaign (Freedom and Justice in Palestine).

Bir Zeit Al Ahlia and Bethlehem Universities were very helpful in allowing us to film on site and in even locating students for us for the interviews. The filming took three days.

My motivation in producing the film was to present to the American public the faces of young Palestinian students who are, of course, no different from students all over the world. Some Americans unfortunately tend not to see Palestinians as full human beings who have the same wishes and desires as they do and have a somewhat distorted if not racist vision. In my view, if Americans were more aware of the humanity of Palestinians, a far greater number of people would have found the inhumane treatment they are subjected to by Israel to be entirely unacceptable.

Although I knew quite a bit about the occupation from various angles before, it was nevertheless incredibly shocking to hear the students recount their stories in person. Each story appeared to reveal the manifold and multilayered ways in which the Israeli occupation operates and discriminates against people while hurting multiple fibers of their being in the process. As an Israeli-American, it was very important to me to overcome the superifical and yet very physical boundaries Israel created between humans on this small piece of land and to bring stories from students there to the wider public.

Samih Asfour, Bir Zeit University, on participating in the video:

I'd like them [American students] to know that the strongest weapon against tyranny is the Human mind and will. If a human uses his mind to find the truth, all it takes is the will in his heart to bring justice to those who deserve it and prosperity to those who deserve that. So all those who participate in this boycott and protest have a strong enough voice to make life better for many people.

Islam Shakarnah, the female student who spoke in the film about how bulldozers destroy the agricultural fields in her village of Nahalin, offered the following addition:

Our lives are becoming harder and harder every day....

I live next to a settlement which is called Betar Illit. And a few days ago I was on a road going with my mother, my aunt and my sister to a field that belongs to my uncle which by the way is something unbelievable that he still has it! We were going to that field and on our way two boys started to throw stones over us from their settlement to our road which is very near to them. Also here we can’t express ourselves easily without feeling afraid of getting imprisoned by the Israeli soldiers for saying the truth of our sufferings and the reality that we live!

An shorter version of the video is here.

About Joshua Tartakovsky

Joshua Tartakovsky is an Israeli-American writer and filmmaker

Reframing reality: the shift

© LifeWise

Reframing reality: the shift
July 13, 2013 | LifeWise | Jon Rappoport

Here is a quote from my unfinished manuscript, The Magician Awakes:

You see, Jimmy, this I can attest and swear to. We’re only operating in part of the arc, a small sector. We’re playing chords in one building. That’s where everybody is.

We’re recycling these chords, and putting them in different sequences, but it’s the same basic music. And when I say music, I mean what people call emotion.

This music goes here and there, and you’ve got ten or twelve billion people convinced it’s the whole shooting match. You can feel this or that or this or that, and nothing else is left over.

We’re talking about experience, Jimmy. But see, what if there are galaxies and universes of experience we know nothing about? Emotions we know nothing about.

We’re in the visible-spectrum arena, a tiny piece of the whole arc. We have no words for all the sixty trillion other emotions that exist out there.

And if that’s true, then we’re puttering away. What we’re quite sure life is, is just a speck in the sea.

Now, Jimmy, I KNOW you’re going to nod and agree with me. You always do that, as if you already know what I’m talking about. You’re going to tell me how the very same thing I’m talking to you about occurred to you when you were a kid in Illinois.

But see, that’s a bunch of crap. You don’t know what I’m talking about. How do I know this? Because nobody has experienced those sixty trillion unknown emotions yet. Nobody.

But we could. We could get started. The only question is how. How do we bust out of the circle, out of the labyrinth?

You’re an engineer, Jimmy. You like to think of yourself as a man who’s at the frontier of knowing what it’s possible to know. You’re a hard-headed guy. You pride yourself on that. At the same time, you claim great power to have thought of everything anyone has ever thought of. My question to you is: how can your wife stand you?

A way out of the labyrinth, Jimmy…the only faculty capable of making the necessary leap:

Imagination.

Imagination isn’t about content, Jim. It isn’t about answers. It’s about creating answers to questions that will never be asked. It’s about putting something there that wasn’t there before.

This stumps most people at the gate. They want content. They don’t want power, they want what power can bring without lifting a finger.

So, Jim, they choose model B over model A and find themselves, after a time, back where they started, because both models came out of the same machine.

We’re talking about the literal mind, Jimmy. The literal mind believes that every solution to a problem is an advance. The literal mind doesn’t notice that some problems require a jump to another landscape.

So Jim, I herewith give you a metaphor. I’m not suggesting you try this. I’m suggesting you imagine this.

If you could get a person to sit still long enough, and if you could do a very long-form interview about his life and past and present, he might, after maybe a hundred sit-downs, shake loose enough material to reframe his entire view of reality.

Everything would depend on how good an interviewer you were. Everything. (And this would be nothing like therapy.)

But…the whole interview process could be based on the interviewee inventing, wholesale, a life and a past he never had. Never had!

During a hundred sit-downs, he would imagine and invent and improvise thousands of details of a life that never was.

“So where did you live as a child?”

“We had an apartment above a hardware store in Ashton, Kansas. The kitchen doubled as my little sister’s bedroom. She slept on a small cot next to the refrigerator. Every night, she peeked over the window sill and watched soldiers standing outside a bar across the street drinking beer and talking and laughing. She collected soldier toys. She kept them in a cardboard box under the cot. She’d wake up in the middle of the night and sit on the floor and turn on the stove burners for illumination and play with the toys. Put them in lines and columns…”

Never happened, Jim. No Ashton, no hardware store, no apartment, no sister, no soldiers, no cot, no toys.

A whole past invented out of whole cloth. Years, decades. Imagined.

Continuing the metaphor: Would you invent such a life so you could step into it, or would you invent it for some other reason?

The answer, Jimmy, is: it depends. Some people would invent a life they actually want to take on, and others wouldn’t.

But in either case, the value of the process (the interview) would be that it widens the scope and power of imagination itself. That’s the damn point.

And with that change, the life you have will look and feel different.

Everything might seem the same on the surface, Jim, but events and possibilities would be more elastic, more like the wet clay the sculptor uses.

In fact, the fundamental particles of existence would be Possibility. They’d replace atoms and neutrons and quarks and wavicles. They’d replace the playing and replaying of set sequences of emotions. New emotions, which have no names, would emerge.

The physical body would get healthier, as if it had been waiting for this to happen.

Emotional programming would disintegrate.

Watch a soap opera for a few years, Jimmy, if you can bear it. You’ll come to see the characters go through the same changes over and over. They wring out the same emotional ups and downs and ins and outs. On and on. It’s a farcical symphony.

People hit the same chords. They reach the end and go back to the beginning. They play the same notes. They deliver the same sequences of frequencies.

This, we’re told, is life.

Yes, a very small corner of it. It’s interesting. For a while. Then the grooves wear out. The B sets in. Boredom.

We haven’t employed imagination intensely enough.

When we do, new roads appear.

Our bodies and minds are musical instruments ready and willing to experience 60 trillion-plus emotions, not 12.

Jim, this isn’t Western philosophy or Eastern philosophy or any philosophy from the past. This isn’t about religion. This isn’t about a system or a structure. This isn’t about solving a problem.

Jimmy, you want to say you have all the CONTENT it’s necessary to have. I know you do. You’re the king of your own castle.

You don’t want someone to shove content down your throat.

But if what content isn’t the issue? What if content is beside the point, in this case?

What if you can imagine and create endless content and substance and even knowledge?

What if, through imagination, there’s NO limit on the amount and kind of content you can create?

What if all cultural fairy tales and myths of cultures are a way of externalizing possibilities that really proceed from inside us?

See, Jim? It’s not exactly what you thought, is it? It’s not something you engineer. I’m not arguing with you about your specialty. Your specialty is systems and programs. I’m talking about something else.

I’m talking about that 60 trillion.


About the Author
By Jon Rappoport – author of THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX. Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  He has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.

Why the precautionary principle matters

image

Why the precautionary principle matters
July 8, 2013 | Guardian | Andy Stirling

Precaution is arguably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented issues in the global politics of science and technology. Misunderstood, because precaution is so often wrongly asserted to be unscientific or anti-technology. Misrepresented, because a large part of the resulting stigma can be a systematic – even deliberate – effect of power.

Powerful interests behind a particular innovation can understandably get pretty exercised when challenged by precautionary concerns over their favoured new technology. But these highly partisan commotions need not provoke such existential angst across society as a whole. Precaution does not necessarily mean a ban. It simply urges that time and space be found to get things right.

To see the value of this, we can start by considering history. Take, for example, asbestos, lead, benzene, pesticides, ozone-depleters or overfishing. In all these areas and many more, early precautionary action was dismissed as irrational by governments, business and scientific establishments alike – claiming there were no alternatives. Yet now, it is agreed on all sides of the debate that levels of risk were initially quite significantly understated. And, in retrospect, there were more viable substitutes than were claimed at the time. Similar questions arise in forward-looking dilemmas of technology choice; around alternatives to nuclear power or GM food, for example.

In a nutshell, precaution reminds us that innovation is not a forced one-track race to the future. Instead – like biological evolution – technological progress entails constantly branching paths. Though often concealed behind science, each involves intrinsically political choices. This requires understanding, rather than denial, of the real nature of uncertainty. Although there exist many versions of precaution, the general gist is that, where there are threats to human health or environment, scientific uncertainty is not a reason for inaction. This does not compel a particular action. It merely reminds us that lack of evidence of harm, is not the same thing as evidence of lack of harm. In other words, the crux of precaution lies in the rigour of taking similar care in avoiding the scientific error of mistakenly assuming safety, to avoiding mistakenly assuming harm.

This in turn hinges on a crucial technical distinction between risk and uncertainty. Risk is a state of knowledge where we feel confident in assigning numerical probabilities. In conventional risk assessment, the onus, burden and levels of proof typically fall most heavily on those concerned about a particular pathway, or who prefer alternatives. The balance of emphasis tends to favour those products with most powerful backing. Precaution offers to level the playing field by inviting a focus not only on risk, but also on uncertainty. Whether due to incomplete evidence, complexity, divergent values, scientific disagreement, gaps in knowledge or the simple possibility of surprise – uncertainties cannot be reduced to neat numerical probabilities. But they are still crucial to rational consideration – and there are plenty of practical ways to deal with them (pdf).

Under uncertainty, then, it is not merely difficult in practice to calculate some single definitive "sound scientific" "evidence based" solution. The point is, it is irrational even to try, let alone claim, this. The notion of exclusively science-based decisions under uncertainty is an oxymoron. How has such confusion come about? Uncertainties, after all, are among the most important driving forces in science. A typical scientist is well aware of the uncertainties in their field, often strongly motivated by them. Reasoned scepticism and open disagreement about uncertainties, are among the most crucial distinguishing qualities of science. Yet when science comes into contact with economic and political power, there develops a strange kind of uncertainty denial. This brings us back at the end, to where this blog began. In order to understand the rhetorical intensity of so much opposition to precaution, we need to look behind the methodological technicalities and consider the powerful political forces and high economic stakes that often hinge on the outcomes.

It is with some sympathy for beleaguered decision makers in business or regulation, that we can understand the often-overwhelming political pressures to justify decisions. This can mean building "policy-based evidence" to assert some pre-decided outcome. Or it can merely mean pressuring an artificially unambiguous "evidence base" for justifying any firm decision at all. In a myriad ways this pressure incentivises analysts and independent expert advisers to sidestep precaution and produce more apparently confident and precise "risk-based" prescriptions than their better judgement might suggest. It is not necessary to envisage any conspiracy or bad faith. The effect is more like iron filings lining up in the magnetic field of power. Either way, it is this pressure for justification that explains why the animosity to precaution extends beyond the partisan advocates of particular uncertain technologies, to political debates in general.

But, in the end, the picture is quite optimistic. Far from the pessimistic caricature, precaution actually celebrates the full depth and potential for human agency in knowledge and innovation. Blinkered risk assessment ignores both positive and negative implications of uncertainty. Though politically inconvenient for some, precaution simply acknowledges this scope and choice. So, while mistaken rhetorical rejections of precaution add further poison to current political tensions around technology, precaution itself offers an antidote – one that is in the best traditions of rationality. By upholding both scientific rigour and democratic accountability under uncertainty, precaution offers a means to help reconcile these increasingly sundered Enlightenment cultures.

Andy Stirling is professor of science and technology policy at the University of Sussex. This is the first in a series on the precautionary principle.

CO2 and the Ideology of Climate Change: The Forces Behind “Carbon-Centric Environmentalism”

© N/A

CO2 and the Ideology of Climate Change: The Forces Behind “Carbon-Centric Environmentalism”
July 12, 2013 | Global Research | Prof. James F. Tracy

On June 25, 2013 President Obama laid out his long term agenda for reducing US industrial and consumer “greenhouse emissions.” On July 11th the Department of Energy warns that “climate change”-related events will be threatening traditional sources of energy production and causing more energy supply disruptions. All the while, the notion that unusual or extreme weather events are primarily due to an excess of atmospheric CO2 and the consequent “greenhouse effect” is arguably based much more on long term economic and political designs than sound science.

As a response to the urgent pleas accompanying the purportedly thorough and unbiased research from scientists comprising the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that seeks to link climate change to human and industrial activity, an array of programs are being proposed and implemented by fiat in both Europe and the US.

Such programs will drastically change the standard of living of most every individual in the developed world. Indeed, since global temperatures do not readily correlate with the minute rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, there has been a marked shift within the CO2 public relations machine from the “global warming” meme to the more amorphous and catchall term, “climate change.”

The real agenda behind this international agenda and promotion of its almost religious “climate change ideology” is establishing the rationale for a massive regulatory and taxation system to reshape human behavior and lifestyle, in addition to carving out an entirely new area for technology outlays and financial speculation using carbon-related securities and derivatives.

Ostensibly a not-for-profit enterprise, preaching the climate change creed has also become a lucrative endeavor, with immense financial resources provided for its continued proselytization. Indeed, the climate-related tax-exempt 501C3 organizations constitute a multi-billion dollar public relations machine devoted to driving home one central theme: humans are to blame for every weather-related disaster graphically presented in every electronic media outlet. Such phony environmentalism involves vigorous efforts to transform public policy based on dubious science while ignoring genuine environmental threats.

While such 501C3s may be found encouraging donations from the general public, the scale of many such organizations’ annual revenue and assets suggests reliance of very deep-pocketed individuals and institutions with an eye toward selling government officials and the broader public on the notion that almost every aberrant weather event is the result of greenhouse emissions.

The following list of nonprofit organizations devoted to pushing the view of climate change and sustainability—by no means complete—has been gathered from their 990 tax forms for 2010. In that year such 501C3s brought in over 1.7 billion in revenue ($1,742,350,656), with the Nature Conservancy, led by former Goldman Sachs managing director Mark Tercek, accounting for over half that amount. Data in the fourth column demonstrates the extent of such entities’ public presence; some command greater journalistic attention while others operate with almost complete anonymity.

501C3 Name	2010 Income	Net Assets	Mentions in Major World News Publications, July 1 2012-June 30 2013 (LexisNexis)
Sierra Club	$97,757,678	$52,209,573	726
World Wildlife Fund	$267,993,426	$182,067,246	993
Friends of the Earth	$5,495,897	$3,407,984	1,831
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	NA	NA	697
United Nations Environmental Program	NA	NA	115
United Nations Foundation	$197,737,803	$231,213,165	101
Nature Conservancy Inc.	$997,037,663	$5,180,558,726	242
Greenpeace Inc.	$27,465,948	$824,056	2,879
Climate Works Foundation	$83,026,313	$215,248,816	1
World Resources Institute	$50,079,176	$59,901,847	125
Center for Biological Diversity	$7,181,472	$10,734,072	115
Defenders of Wildlife	$30,229,512	$23,839,354	35
International Institute for Environment and Development	$30,335,978	$5,121,919	1
Natural Resources Defense Council	$97,957,964	$197,413,060	484
National Council for Science and the Environment	$3,526,925	$562,386	8
Global Green USA	$4,633,587	$4,372,965	8
Pew Center on Global Climate Change	$6,424,365	$4,666,874	2
Institute for Sustainable Communities	$15,007,337	$6,207,761	0
Sustainable Markets Foundation	$4,347,579	$1,660,940	0
US Climate Action Network	$2,414,999	$1,067,116	1
350 Org	$3,013,995	$2,250,300	109
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education	$2,362,495	$736,159	0
The Alliance for Climate Protection	$19,150,215	$12,052,979	5
Climate Solutions	$2,642,682	$907,901	29
Alliance for Climate Education	$2,749,291	$369,251	2
Climate Central Inc.	$3,273,478	-$808,414	49
Climate Group Inc.	$2,746,784	$465,685	0

For example, the Al Gore-funded Climate Project was first set up for “educational purposes,” principally to have the message of An Inconvenient Truth carried into US classrooms. Another organization, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, similarly carries out the less prominent work of promoting the green agenda within colleges and universities. Overall, such resources are utilized to emphasize the alleged dangers of greenhouse gas emissions to the very existence of civilization and life itself. The extent of such resources is comparable to what many transnational corporations spends on advertising annually.

While Obama and the array of well-funded environmental organizations campaign on the purported dangers of gaseous emissions, they are wholly silent on what are truly grave threats to the environment and humanity—namely the widescale contamination of the food supply from genetically modified organisms, the array of clandestine weather modification and geoengineering programs, the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, and grave pollution of entire global regions from depleted uranium and Fukushima radiation that will last many lifetimes.

In light of these ongoing catastrophes and the powerful financial interests behind carbon-centric environmental advocacy, Obama’s posturing over anthropogenic climate change and environmentalists’ well-funded overtures may be seen for what they actually are—the visible components of a complex social engineering program far advanced in convincing the public that its return to a pre-feudal-like existence will not only be agreeable, but absolutely imperative for the greater good.

2 Million Deaths Yearly Worldwide Linked with Air Pollution

CREDIT: Viktor Fiker | Dreamstime

2 Million Deaths Yearly Worldwide Linked with Air Pollution
July 12, 2013 | Live Science | Rachael Rettner

Air pollution may be responsible for more than 2 million deaths around the world each year, according to a new study.

The study estimated that 2.1 million deaths each year are linked with fine particulate matter, tiny particles that can get deep into the lungs and cause health problems.

Exposure to particle pollution has been linked with early death from heart and lung diseases, including lung cancer, the researchers said; meanwhile, concentrations of particulate matter have been increasing due to human activities. The study also found that 470,000 deaths yearly are linked with human sources of ozone, which forms when pollutants from sources such as cars or factories come together and react. Exposure to ozone has been linked to death from respiratory diseases.

Most of the estimated global deaths likely occur in East and South Asia, which have large populations and severe air pollution, said study researcher Jason West, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Air pollution is an important problem. It's probably one of the most important environmental risk factors for health," West said. The study suggests that improving air quality around the world would increase life expectancy for some, he said.

While some studies have suggested that climate change can make air pollution more deadly, the new study found that climate change had only a small effect on air pollution-related deaths.

Pollution and climate interact in several ways. Climate-related factors such as temperature and humidity can affect the reaction rates of particles in the air, which in turn determine the formation of pollutants; additionally, rainfall can affect accumulation of pollutants, the researchers said.

However, in the researchers' analysis, changes in climate were linked with just 1,500 yearly deaths from ozone pollution, and 2,200 yearly deaths from fine particulate matter.

The researchers used a number of climate models to estimate concentrations of air pollution around the world, in the years 1850 (the pre-industrial era) and 2000. Focusing on these two years allowed the researchers to determine what proportion of air pollution was human-caused (attributable to industrialization).

Then, the researchers used information from past studies on air pollution and health to determine how many deaths are linked with particular concentrations of air pollution, West said.

The new study had an advantage over previous work in that it did not rely on just one climate model, but instead included several. However, because the study used information from previous research on air pollution and health, the estimates are subject to the same uncertainties that characterized those previous studies.

In addition, most of the studies on air pollution and health were conducted in the United States, so  applying those results globally, as the current study did, introduces some uncertainty, West said.

The study will be published in the July 12 issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Are you a drug guinea pig? A hidden threat from the newest drugs

© thelocal.de
The newest medication may not be your
safest choice because when a new drug is
approved less than half of its serious
reactions are known. The FDA relies upon you,
the consumer, to determine the other half.

SOTT: Are you a drug guinea pig? A hidden threat from the newest drugs
July 18, 2010 | drugenquirer.com

If you are taking a brand-new prescription med, you are part of the great ongoing clinical trial - whether you know it or not.

And so a team of Harvard University medical professors advises physicians NOT to prescribe the new medications to their patients "unless they represent an important medical advance" in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The editorial shows the safety of new drugs is not established - despite FDA approval.

Aren't drugs thoroughly tested before going on the market?

"Actually, the American public is the primary guinea-pig for new medications. The FDA views the first years after some drugs hit the market as Phase 4 of a clinical trial, because that's when it's really put to the test," states Jay S. Cohen, M.D., associate professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of California at San Diego.

Before FDA approval of a new drug, only a few hundred or thousand of carefully screened patients have used it, and then only for a few weeks or months. It's only after FDA approval that drug-makers sell their new drugs to a diverse cross-section of the population for long-term use.

The JAMA doctors uncovered data that shows a staggering 19.8 million patients--almost 10% of the American public--were exposed to new drugs before they were removed from the market.

New Isn't Always Better

"A major study found that 51 percent of all new drugs have serious side effects that were not recognized prior to approval," states Dr. Cohen. Like the JAMA doctors cited above, Dr. Cohen "recommend[s] that doctors and patients avoid medications that have only been on the market a few years, unless there's a specific reason to use them rather than older formulas whose risk are better known."

There may be a growing number of medical professionals concerned about the safety of new drugs. A symposium sponsored by the U.S. Army Medical Dept. and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine concurred with the same JAMA report:

Adverse drug reactions, they acknowledge, is a leading cause of death in the U.S. They analyzed the 25-year record of drug label changes (between 1975 to 1999) as they appeared in the Physician's Desk Reference and found that 548 new drugs were approved during that period. Of these 20% required subsequent black box warnings about life threatening drug reactions, half of these adverse effects were detected within 2 years, others took much longer. Sixteen [new] drugs had to be withdrawn from the market because they were lethal.

...

The JAMA report corroborated the findings of the LA Times earlier report: in some cases FDA approved new drugs despite pre-marketing evidence indicating potential danger. In his editorial in JAMA, FDA's Dr. Robert Temple attempts to disavow agency responsibility, while acknowledging: "Pre-marketing trials in a few thousand (usually relatively uncomplicated) [parenthetical statement is original] patients do not detect all of a drug's adverse effects...and sometimes the post-marketing discoveries cause the drug to be withdrawn."

The military symposium was also referring to the Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative report published in the Los Angeles Times (David Willman, December 2000) which shows the FDA was the last to withdraw several drugs already banned by European health agencies. In eight years, from January 1993 through December 2000, seven deadly drugs were brought to market only to be withdrawn after the new drugs had been linked to at least 1,002 deaths.

Sources

• Wood A.J.J. "The safety of new medicines. The importance of asking the right questions" JAMA editorial, 281 (1999):1753-1754: healthandpharma.awardspace.com/~.
• Cohen, J.S. Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies: Prescription Drugs, Side Effects, and Your Health. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001.
• Strand, R.D. Death by Prescription: The Shocking Truth Behind an Overmedicated Nation. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.
• Lazarou J., et al. "Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies." JAMA 279 (1998):1200-1205: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9555760.
• Sharav, V.H. "Conflicts of Interest," 14th Tri-Service Clinical Investigation Symposium sponsored by U.S. Army Medical Department and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for The Advancement of Military Medicine (May 6-8, 2002): http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf
• Temple, R.T., et al. "Safety of newly approved drugs; Implications for prescribing," JAMA editorial, 287 (2002):2273.
• Willman, D. "How a New Policy Led to Seven Deadly Drugs," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 2000 (Front page).