12 Mandela Quotes That Won't Be In the Corporate Media Obituaries

On "sanitizing" the legacy of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela

By Common Dreams staff

Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday at age 95, was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who served as President of South Africa from 1994-1999.

During the 1950's, while working as an anti-apartheid lawyer, Mandela was repeatedly arrested for 'seditious activities' and 'treason.' In 1963 he was convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela served 27 years in prison before an international lobbying campaign finally won his release in 1990.

In 1994, Mandela was elected President and formed a Government of National Unity in an attempt to defuse ethnic tensions. As President, he established a new constitution and initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses and to uncover the truth about crimes of the South African government, using amnesty as a mechanism.

Nelson Mandela was a powerful and inspirational leader who eloquently and forcefully spoke truth to power. As tributes are published over the coming days, the corporate media will paint a sanitized portrait of Mandela that leaves out much of who he was. We expect to see 'safe' Mandela quotes such as "education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" or "after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb."

We wanted to share some Nelson Mandela quotes which we don't expect to read in the corporate media's obituaries:

"A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favor. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens."

"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."

"The current world financial crisis also starkly reminds us that many of the concepts that guided our sense of how the world and its affairs are best ordered, have suddenly been shown to be wanting.”

"Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality. He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry."

"There is no doubt that the United States now feels that they are the only superpower in the world and they can do what they like."

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”

"If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers."

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”

On Gandhi: "From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good."

Source: en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

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Under Our Skin - The politics of chronic Lyme disease

In the 1970s, a mysterious and deadly illness began infecting children in a small town in Connecticut. Today it's a global epidemic. A real-life thriller, this shocking festival hit exposes the controversy surrounding chronic Lyme disease. Following the stories of individuals fighting for their lives, director Andy Abrahams Wilson reveals with beauty and horror a natural world out of balance and a human nature all too willing to put profits before patients.

More Vitamin D, No Vaccines, Virtually No Autism

By Dr Mayer Eisenstein

While vaccine proponents claim that the benefits of childhood vaccination are undeniable, vaccine opponents hold that the incidence of autism, diabetes, and other chronic immune and neurological dysfunction in children has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This stresses the difficulty in making an informed decision on whether to vaccinate or not. Can Vitamin D improve the symptoms of autism? I will present case studies that exemplify the effect of Vitamin D3 in treating autism.

Genetic Roulette -- The Gamble of Our Lives

Linus Pauling on vitamin C in urine (1993)

How to Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease—A Neurologist Speaks Out

Alzheimer's disease is currently at epidemic proportions, with 5.4 million Americans—including one in eight people aged 65 and over—living with it. There is no known cure, and few truly effective treatments

Research suggests the best hope is in prevention focusing on exercise and diet, specifically replacing carbohydrates with higher amounts of healthful fats, and moderate amounts of high-quality protein

Gluten sensitivity appears to be involved in most chronic disease, including those affecting the brain, because of how gluten affects your immune system. Glucose and fructose,(sugars) and carbohydrates can also have powerfully toxic effects

Preventing and treating neurological disorders requires severe restriction of gluten and casein. You also need to address your gut flora

Source

Tapped - The Movie

'Tapped The Movie' - Trailer on Bottled Water Documentary from WorldClassWellness on Vimeo.

Official Site:
http://www.tappedthemovie.com/

Science Talk: Study Finds Vitamin C Can Kill Drug-Resistant TB

CFS Launches Class Action Lawsuit against Monsanto

By the Center For Food Safety

Last week, CFS and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers launched a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for the escape of Monsanto’s illegal GE wheat in Oregon. Support our work to hold Monsanto accountable!

You probably read the news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that unapproved, genetically engineered (GE) wheat was found contaminating an Oregon farmer’s field. The GE wheat, known as Roundup Ready, was developed by the Monsanto Company to withstand direct application of Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide, and was never approved for sale. 

The discovery of unapproved Roundup Ready wheat in a farmer's field in Oregon, years after Monsanto terminated field testing, is just the latest example of Monsanto's inability to keep their engineered genes under control. Until Monsanto and USDA begin to take gene flow from field tests more seriously, we can expect GE contamination to continue to cause havoc.

CFS is not standing idly by hoping Monsanto and USDA do the right thing. We are taking action. Last week, Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto. Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers are representing the broad class of farmers affected by this contamination, seeking monetary compensation for farmers who have lost export markets, and forcing Monsanto to take measures to clean up the contamination and ensure it never happens again. 

This is a pivotal moment for the food movement, and we can’t do this work without your support! Together we can stand up to Monsanto and hold them accountable.

As we’ve warned for over a decade, GE crops simply can’t be controlled once they’re released into the environment. Past transgenic contamination episodes involving GE corn and GE rice triggered over $1 billion in losses and economic hardship to farmers, and recalls of food products containing illegal GE corn. CFS has been there every time, fighting in the courts, in the halls of Congress, and in communities to protect our food, our farms, and our environment from these risky GE crops.

With your support, we’ve been working to hold biotech companies like Monsanto accountable and tighten regulations over their experimental GE crop field trials for over a decade. And we’ve had a lot of successes -- like our past litigation over similar field trials in Oregon and Hawaii for other GE crops in which we won substantial victories over USDA and industry for their field trial abuses and failures. Because of this litigation, we now have the legal ability to challenge the legality of field trials, and USDA can no longer ignore their environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We’ve even forced USDA to publicly admit new field trial contamination incidents, like this one, that they otherwise tried to keep secret. 

We can do so much more, but we need your help to succeed. Please make a donation to support our groundbreaking lawsuit today!

Center for Food Safety

660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #302

Washington DC 20003

phone (202) 547-9359 | fax (202) 547-9429

Contact Us: office@centerforfoodsafety.org

Myriad Loses Patent to Breast Cancer Genetic Test

By Richard Smallteacher,

CorpWatch Blog

June 13th, 2013

Myriad Genetics has lost its right to be the exclusive U.S. commercial provider of genetic screening tests for breast cancer or ovarian cancer. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sued the company, claimed that the patent would limit scientific research as well as health care options for women.

Mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes significantly increase the risk of cancer. By discovering the location of the genes, Myriad was able to develop tests to detect the mutations for which it charged over $3,000. No other company was allowed to do research on the genes without permission from Myriad.

In a unanimous decision released today by the U.S. Supreme Court, all nine judges agreed with the ACLU.

“Myriad did not create anything,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the decision. “It is undisputed that Myriad did not create or alter any of the genetic information encoded in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Groundbreaking, innovative or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the criteria (for a patent)

The Myriad patent has long been deeply controversial.

“For women as they are trying to make these major life decisions, it is very helpful for them to have a second opinion. By having only a single lab offering that testing, it is impossible really to be able get that second opinion, either in the way the test is performed or in the interpretation of such a result,” says Dr. Wendy Chung, a clinician and a geneticist at Columbia University. “You’re essentially stuck in a situation of a mediocre test.”

The Myriad screening test is also mostly based on results gathered from white women. The patent has limited further research to see if the results are accurate for women of other races, says Kim Irish of Breast Cancer Action who cites the example of Runi Limary, an Asian woman who received ambiguous results when she had genetic testing done. “Runi was told that this “variant of uncertain significance” has been seen in Asian women, and that these ambiguous results seem to come up more for women of color,” says Irish.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against Myriad, the University of Utah Research Foundation and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in May 2009. A federal judge ruled against Myriad in 2010 but the company won on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. 

James Watson, one of the two scientists who discovered DNA, filed a friend of the court brief that stated: “(W)e would not want one individual or company to monopolize the legal right to the beneficial information of a human gene—information that should be used for the betterment of the human race as a whole.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has long accepted claims that include DNA sequences – an estimated 35,000 such patents have been approved.

However the Obama administration recently began to limit this approach. “The chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and it is no less a product of nature when that structure is ‘isolated’ from its natural environment than are cotton fibers that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth,” wrote lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice in a legal brief in 2010. "Common sense would suggest that a product of nature is not transformed into a human-made invention merely by isolating it.”

The ACLU welcomed the decision. "Today, the court struck down a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation," said Sandra Park, an ALCU lawyer. "Myriad did not invent the BRCA genes and should not control them. Because of this ruling, patients will have greater access to genetic testing and scientists can engage in research on these genes without fear of being sued."

Source

The Benefits of a Ketogenic Diet and its Role in Cancer Treatment

By Dr Mercola

A ketogenic diet calls for eliminating all but non-starchy vegetable carbohydrates, and replacing them with healthy fats and high quality protein.

The premise is that since cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and carbohydrates turn into glucose in your body, then lowering the glucose level in your blood though carb and protein restriction, literally starves the cancer cells into oblivion.  Additionally, low protein intake tends to minimize the mTOR pathway that accelerates cell proliferation.

This type of diet, in which you restrict all but non-starchy vegetable carbs and replace them with low to moderate amounts of high quality protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, is what I recommend for everyone, whether you have cancer or not. It’s a diet that will help optimize your weight and  all chronic degenerative disease. Eating this way will help you convert from carb burning mode to fat burning.

Dr. Thomas Seyfried is one of the leading pioneer academic researchers in promoting how to treat cancer nutritionally. He’s been teaching neurogenetics and neurochemistry as it relates to cancer treatment at Yale University and Boston College for the past 25 years.

He’s written over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, and has also published a book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer.

Source

Validated Independent News: Human Health

By Project Censored

Campaign to Fluoridate America Corporate media obscure an ongoing battle over water fluoridation in the U.S. While a recent New York Times editorial cites the Center for Disease Control’s claim that fluoridation is one of the top accomplishments in public health over the past century, James Tracy reports that fluoridating the nation’s water supply appears to have been a carefully coordinated plan designed to shield major aluminum and steel producers from liabilities for the substantial fluorine pollution their plants generated. Thus American industrial interests, supported by public relations firms, have been the chief forces behind water fluoridation.

Cow Hormones in Water Supply A May 2012 study published by the journal Environmental Science & Technology reported that large dairy farms are a “primary source” of estrogen contamination in the environment. Researchers found three primary estrogens in the wastewater, and further analysis revealed that, because of the rapid conversion from one form estrogen to another, these hormones do not degrade, but persist in the environment.

Potential of African-led Health Research A 2011 study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and USAid found that investing an additional $21-$36 per person on healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa would save more than 3 million lives in the year 2015. 90% of those saved would be women and children. Such an investment would also generate $100 billion in economic benefits.

Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. A major health crisis looms that is only hastened through the extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology.

Corporate Hypocrisy in Fight against Breast Cancer Each year in October, corporations such as General Mills and Johnson & Johnson adorn their products in pink to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research; however, many of these companies’ products contain cancer-linked chemicals and toxins. As Brittany Shoot reports, “Food manufacturing giants use packaging full of cancer-linked chemicals, yet partner with breast cancer organizations to funnel money toward research.” This “pink washing” may distract consumers from how these companies actual contribute to the problem.

U.S. Health Law May Curb Rising Maternal Deaths America’s mothers are dying in increasing numbers. The U.S. had the highest rate of maternal mortality of all developed nations in 2009 with 16.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, an increase from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987, according to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. Definitive explanations for the rising maternal mortality rate are lacking, but some evidence suggests that hew health care laws, improving preventative care for pregnant women, could contribute to reversing the trend.

Should Childhood Vaccination be Mandatory? Childhood vaccines killed or injured 2,699 children last year in America, the US government has admitted – and 101 children developed autism after vaccination, even though researchers continue to insist that no link exists. Paul Offit advocates that, although vaccines are not free of risk, their benefits clearly outweigh their risks. If parents were well informed, they would choose to vaccinate their children. 

Missing Medicines in Malawi Malawi suffers from shortages of essential drugs. A 2012 Oxfam report found that only nine percent of local health facilities (54 of 585) had the full Essential Health Package list of drugs for treating 11 common diseases. 

China Acknowledges “Cancer Villages” In February 2013, China’s environmental ministry officially acknowledged the presence of cancer hot spots, known informally as “cancer villages,” throughout the country. Chinese media have reported 459 “cancer villages” throughout China, in every province and autonomous region except Qinghai and Tibet. Once a rare disease, cancer is now the biggest killer in both urban and rural China, with mortality rates as high as 80 percent in the last 30 years.

The Drugs in US Meat–We’re Eating What? Synthetic growth hormones routinely administered in the US to livestock are not listed on food package labels. Other drugs used to increase muscle mass in pigs and turkeys, including ractopamine, have been banned in 160 but remain in use in the US. A European scientific commission believes there is an association between steroid hormones and cancers, including breast and prostate cancers, and that meat consumption is the culprit. The US has the highest rates of both and also uses the most hormones in its meat production. Since 1989, Europe has banned most US meat.

Genital Mutilation in the US Although genital mutilation is concentrated in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, thousands of US girls living in immigrant communities are sent out of the country to places where genital mutilation is practiced, or relatives from practicing counties come to the US to do the procedure. The New York metropolitan area has the highest cases of female genital mutilation in the US; approximately 41,000 cases. These women face major complications to their health, including infections, post-traumatic stress disorder and painful menstruation cycles.

Routine Infant Circumcision: Exempt from American Medical Ethics The US is the only country in the world that circumcises male infants for non-religious reasons. This pro-circumcision bias of American culture is reflected in medical theory and policy. However, most proponents lack awareness of the health impact of circumcision.

South Africa “Over 25% Schoolgirls HIV Positive” About five million people in South Africa are HIV positive, which is about 10% of the total population. Those numbers are higher when looking at the school-age female population. Over 25% of school-aged girls are HIV positive, some as young as 10 years old. Many contract HIV as a result of sexual relations with older “sugar-daddies.” 

Private-Equity Firms Target the US Health-Care Industry

Private equity (PE) firms are targeting the US health-care providers. Growing PE interest in low profit or non-profit sectors like hospitals is expanding. PE investors are betting on new profit opportunities from the growing needs of the baby-boomer generation and from the Affordable Care Act, which will dramatically expand health-insurance coverage.

Federally Funded Health-Care Co-ops —Coming to Your Community With funding from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), communities are coming together to develop Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans—CO-Ops to operate community health care facilities or cooperative insurance plans. Unlike private health insurance companies, these co-ops are owned and democratically controlled by their members. Beginning in 2014, a first wave of co-ops will launch in 24 states, with an estimated 19 million previously uninsured Americans expected to use insurance exchanges to buy health coverage.

The US has left Iraq with an Epidemic of Cancers and Birth Defects After ten years of war in Iraq, Dahr Jamail reports, the US has left Iraq (and especially the city of Fallujah) with a rising epidemic of toxic contamination. After the US military used depleted uranium munitions in 2004, Iraqi medical officials have tracked twice number of cancer cases as in 1995.

Mozambique’s First HIV Vaccine Trial Heralds New Era in Local Research Mozambique’s Polana Cancio Centre for Research and Public Health has finished its first HIV vaccine trial and is preparing to start the second trial. According to the preliminary test, the vaccine is safe for use. According to Ilesh Jani, the studies mark an important step towards bolstering clinical trial and research capacity for diseases such as HIV and malaria. One goal of this research is to develop a vaccine that will be affordable in countries such as Mozambique.

Skyrocketing HIV/AIDS Rates in African American Women In August 2012 at the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC, HIV advocates met to discuss the skyrocketing HIV infection rates in black women that are increasing to levels found in sub-Sahara Africa. The recent growth in HIV cases among African-American women especially among youth has public health professionals concerned. In 2010, black women contracted 44 percent of new HIV infections. 

Background TV Poses Danger for Children A recent study conducted at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) sheds new light on the detrimental impact background television has on children’s neural development and social skills. The UNCW study shows that children exposed to more TV are more likely to develop problems with hyperactivity and antisocial behavior. When children accustomed to such high doses of daily television stop watching all together, depression has a tendency to develop.

US Veterans Prescribed Lethal Drugs to Treat PTSD A number of US war veterans were issued a variety of potentially deadly pharmaceuticals to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including the dangerous antipsychotic drug Seroquel. Pleas from the families of deceased veterans finally persuaded the U.S. Central Command to remove the dangerous antipsychotic from the list of military PTSD treatments. Information about Seroquel and similar drugs is often kept hidden from the public, leaving consumers of generic brands unaware of corporate deceit and veteran deaths.

Antidepressant Drugs Pose Serious Health Concerns for Unborn Babies The world’s largest drug companies are encouraging pregnant women to take prescription drugs, get vaccine shots, and even have chemotherapy. Among these are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or antidepressants, which are causing miscarriages and a variety of birth defects. Excessive prescription drug use in pregnant women is also linked to the increase of babies born with autism, preterm birth, newborn behavioral syndrome, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn and longer-term neurobehavioral effects.

Pesticides May Lead to Cancer and Autism in Children Pesticides are harmful to the health and intelligence of America’s children, according to an October 2012 report released by the Pesticide Action Network of North America. Titled, “A Generation in Jeopardy,” the study notes how chemicals from pest control products are one key cause of a range of disorders such as ADHD, autism, cancer, disrupted metabolism, and even low IQs.

Laboratory Study of Rats Supports Dangers of GM Corn A study published in September issue of The Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal found that rats fed Monsanto’s genetically modified corn over several months showed significant health problems including premature death and tumors. The study found that over half of the male rats and 70 percent of the females who were fed a lifetime of Monsanto’s corn died prematurely with significant liver and kidney damage. Scientists also found the rats to contain cancerous tumors so large they blocked organ function. While numerous studies have examined their short-term impact, this is the first ever study to examine the long-term effects of GMO consumptions.

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Hurts - Only You

How Americans Became Exposed to Biohazards in the Greatest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever Launched

By David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, TomDispatch | News Analysis

Truthout

We need your help to sustain grassroots, groundbreaking journalism. Make a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout now by clicking here.

A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name -- and no antidote. 

The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised “better living through chemistry,” but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment.

Today, we are all unwitting subjects in the largest set of drug trials ever. Without our knowledge or consent, we are testing thousands of suspected toxic chemicals and compounds, as well as new substances whose safety is largely unproven and whose effects on human beings are all but unknown. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) itself has begun monitoring our bodies for 151 potentially dangerous chemicals, detailing the variety of pollutants we store in our bones, muscle, blood, and fat. None of the companies introducing these new chemicals has even bothered to tell us we’re part of their experiment. None of them has asked us to sign consent forms or explained that they have little idea what the long-term side effects of the chemicals they’ve put in our environment -- and so our bodies -- could be. Nor do they have any clue as to what the synergistic effects of combining so many novel chemicals inside a human body in unknown quantities might produce.

How Industrial Toxins Entered the American Home

The story of how Americans became unwitting test subjects began more than a century ago. The key figure was Alice Hamilton, the “mother” of American occupational medicine, who began documenting the way workers in lead paint pigment factories, battery plants, and lead mines were suffering terrible palsies, tremors, convulsions, and deaths after being exposed to lead dust that floated in the air, coating their workbenches and clothes.

Soon thereafter, children exposed to lead paint and lead dust in their homes were also identified as victims of this deadly neurotoxin. Many went into convulsions and comas after crawling on floors where lead dust from paint had settled, or from touching lead-painted toys, or teething on lead-painted cribs, windowsills, furniture, and woodwork.

Instead of leveling with the public, the lead industry through its trade group, the Lead Industries Association, began a six-decade-long campaign to cover-up its product’s dire effects. It challenged doctors who reported lead-poisoned children to health departments, distracted the public through advertisements that claimed lead was “safe” to use, and fought regulation of the industry by local government, all in the service of profiting from putting a poison in paint, gasoline, plumbing fixtures, and even toys, baseballs, and fishing gear. 

As Joe Camel would be for tobacco, so the little Dutch Boy of the National Lead Company became an iconic marketing tool for Dutch Boy Lead Paint, priming Americans to invite a dangerous product into their children’s playrooms, nurseries, and lives. The company also launched a huge advertising campaign that linked lead to health, rather than danger. It even produced coloring books for children, encouraging them to paint their rooms and furniture using lead-based paint.

Only after thousands of children were poisoned and, in the 1960s, activist groups like the Young Lords and the Black Panthers began to use lead poisoning as a symbol of racial and class oppression did public health professionals and the federal government begin to rein in companies like the Sherwin-Williams paint company and the Ethyl Corporation, which produced tetraethyl lead, the lead-additive in gasoline. In 1971, Congress passed the Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Act that limited lead in paint used for public housing. In 1978, the Consumer Products Safety Commission finally banned lead in all paints sold for consumer use. During the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency issued rules that led to the elimination of leaded gasoline by 1995 (though it still remains in aviation fuel).

The CDC estimates that in at least 4 million households in the U.S. today children are still exposed to dangerous amounts of lead from old paint that produces dust every time a nail is driven into a wall to hang a picture, a new electric socket is installed, or a family renovates its kitchen. It estimates that more than 500,000 children ages one to five have “elevated” levels of lead in their blood. (No level is considered safe for children.) Studies have linked lost IQ points, attention deficit disorders, behavioral problems, dyslexia, and even possibly high incarceration rates to tiny amounts of lead in children’s bodies.

Unfortunately, when it came to the creation of America’s chemical soup, the lead industry was hardly alone. Asbestos is another classic example of an industrial toxin that found its way into people’s homes and bodies. For decades, insulation workers, brake mechanics, construction workers, and a host of others in hundreds of trades fell victim to the disabling and deadly lung diseases of asbestosis or to lung cancer and the fatal cancer called mesothelioma when they breathed in dust produced during the installation of boilers, the insulation of pipes, the fixing of cars that used asbestos brake linings, or the spraying of asbestos on girders. Once again, the industry knew its product’s dangers early and worked assiduously to cover them up.

Despite growing medical knowledge about its effects (and increasing industry attempts to downplay or suppress that knowledge), asbestos was soon introduced to the American home and incorporated into products ranging from insulation for boilers and piping in basements to floor tiles and joint compounds. It was used to make sheetrock walls, roof shingles, ironing boards, oven gloves, and hot plates. Soon an occupational hazard was transformed into a threat to all consumers.

Today, however, these devastating industrial-turned-domestic toxins, which destroyed the health and sometimes took the lives of hundreds of thousands, seem almost quaint when compared to the brew of potential or actual toxins we’re regularly ingesting in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. 

Of special concern are a variety of chlorinated hydrocarbons, including DDT and other pesticides that were once spread freely nationwide, and despite being banned decades ago, have accumulated in the bones, brains, and fatty tissue of virtually all of us. Their close chemical carcinogenic cousins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were found in innumerable household and consumer products -- like carbonless copy paper, adhesives, paints, and electrical equipment – from the 1950s through the 1970s. We’re still paying the price for that industrial binge today, as these odorless, tasteless compounds have become permanent pollutants in the natural environment and, as a result, in all of us.

The Largest Uncontrolled Experiment in History

While old houses with lead paint and asbestos shingles pose risks, potentially more frightening chemicals are lurking in new construction going on in the latest mini-housing boom across America. Our homes are now increasingly made out of lightweight fibers and reinforced synthetic materials whose effects on human health have never been adequately studied individually, let alone in the combinations we’re all subjected to today. 

Formaldehyde, a colorless chemical used in mortuaries as a preservative, can also be found as a fungicide, germicide, and disinfectant in, for example, plywood, particle board, hardwood paneling, and the “medium density fiberboard” commonly used for the fronts of drawers and cabinets or the tops of furniture. As the material ages, it evaporates into the home as a known cancer-producing vapor, which slowly accumulates in our bodies. The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health suggests that homeowners “purchasing pressed-wood products, including building material, cabinetry, and furniture... should ask about the formaldehyde content of these products.”

What’s inside your new walls might be even more dangerous. While the flame retardants commonly used in sofas, chairs, carpets, love seats, curtains, baby products, and even TVs, sounded like a good idea when widely introduced in the 1970s, they turn out to pose hidden dangers that we’re only now beginning to grasp. Researchers have, for instance, linked one of the most common flame retardants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, to a wide variety of potentially undesirable health effects including thyroid disruption, memory and learning problems, delayed mental and physical development, lower IQ, and the early onset of puberty.

Other flame retardants like Tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate have been linked to cancer. As the CDC has documented in an ongoing study of the accumulation of hazardous materials in our bodies, flame retardants can now be found in the blood of “nearly all” of us. 

Nor are these particular chemicals anomalies. Lurking in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, for instance, are window cleaners and spot removers that contain known or suspected cancer-causing agents. The same can be said of cosmetics in your makeup case or of your plastic water bottle or microwavable food containers. Most recently, Bisphenol A (BPA), the synthetic chemical used in a variety of plastic consumer products, including some baby bottles, epoxy cements, the lining of tuna fish cans, and even credit card receipts, has been singled out as another everyday toxin increasingly found inside all of us. 

Recent studies indicate that its effects are as varied as they are distressing. As Sarah Vogel of the Environmental Defense Fund has written, “New research on very-low-dose exposure to BPA suggests an association with adverse health effects, including breast and prostate cancer, obesity, neurobehavioral problems, and reproductive abnormalities.” 

Teflon, or perfluorooctanoic acid, the heat-resistant, non-stick coating that has been sold to us as indispensable for pots and pans, is yet another in the list of substances that may be poisoning us, almost unnoticed. In addition to allowing fried eggs to slide right onto our plates, Teflon is in all of us, according to the Science Advisory Board of the Environmental Protection Agency, and “likely to be carcinogenic in humans.”

These synthetic materials are just a few of the thousands now firmly embedded in our lives and our bodies. Most have been deployed in our world and put in our air, water, homes, and fields without being studied at all for potential health risks, nor has much attention been given to how they interact in the environments in which we live, let alone our bodies. The groups that produce these miracle substances -- like the petrochemical, plastics, and rubber industries, including major companies like Exxon, Dow, and Monsanto -- argue that, until we can definitively prove the chemical products slowly leaching into our bodies are dangerous, we have no “right,” and they have no obligation, to remove them from our homes and workplaces. The idea that they should prove their products safe before exposing the entire population to them seems to be a foreign concept.

In the 1920s, the oil industry made the same argument about lead as an additive in gasoline, even though it was already known that it was a dangerous toxin for workers. Spokesman for companies like General Motors insisted that it was a “gift of God,” irreplaceable and essential for industrial progress and modern living, just as the lead industry argued for decades that lead was “essential” to produce good paint that would protect our homes.

Like the oil, lead, and tobacco industries of the twentieth century, the chemical industry, through the American Chemistry Council and public relations firms like Hill & Knowlton, is fighting tooth and nail to stop regulation and inhibit legislation that would force it to test chemicals before putting them in the environment. In the meantime, Americans remain the human guinea pigs in advanced trials of hundreds if not thousands of commonly used, largely untested chemicals. There can be no doubt that this is the largest uncontrolled experiment in history. 

To begin to bring it under control would undoubtedly involve major grassroots efforts to push back against the offending corporations, courageous politicians, billions of dollars, and top-flight researchers. But before any serious steps are likely to be taken, before we even name this epidemic, we need to wake up to its existence. 

A toxic dump used to be a superfund site or a nuclear waste disposal site. Increasingly, however, we -- each and every one of us -- are toxic dumps and for us there’s no superfund around, no disposal plan in sight. In the meantime, we’re walking, talking biohazards and we don’t even know it.To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here

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Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Northrup - 10 Tips for Women's Breast Health

By Dr Mercola

Over the past 30 years, an estimated 1.3 million American women have been overdiagnosed with breast cancer that posed no threat to their life. In 2008, an estimated 70,000 women were overdiagnosed with breast cancer in the US, which accounts for 31 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed that year

According to Dr. Northrup, women who tend to be most at risk for breast cancer are those who have difficulty nurturing themselves and receiving pleasure. Nurturing self-love and self-acceptance is an important part of creating optimal health, especially for women

Dr. Northrup’s Top 10 health tips for women include: getting enough sleep, meditation and positive affirmations, practicing self-love and self-acceptance, exercising regularly, breathing properly, optimizing your vitamin D levels, cultivating your social life, taking Epsom salt baths, and keeping a gratitude journal

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Full statement by MMR scare doctor Andrew Wakefield: 'The Government has tried to cover up putting price before children’s health'

The Independent

The full statement from Andrew Wakefield, the discredited doctor whose Lancet article sparked the MMR scare 15 years ago, on the outbreak of measles in Wales

In the wake of further media distortion, misrepresentation, and ignorance in relation to the measles outbreak in Wales, it is important to clarify some key facts.

In 1998, following an analysis of all published pre-licensing studies of MMR vaccine safety I recommended the use of single measles vaccine in preference to MMR. This remains my position.

At that time, in contrast with the false assertions of many commentators, including Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, and vaccine millionaire Paul Offit, the single vaccines were licensed in the UK and freely available to the British public.

While MMR vaccination uptake fell from February 1998, there was a reciprocal increase in the uptake of the single vaccines – a fact that is never acknowledged in the press. Vaccination clinics administered many thousands of doses of measles vaccine and children were “protected”.

Six months later, in September 1998, the British government withdrew the importation licence for the single vaccines, effectively blocking this option for parents. 

Measles cases in the UK rose when the government withdrew the importation licence for the single measles vaccine leaving concerned parents with no choice. When I demanded to know why, if the government’s principal concern was to protect children from measles, it would prevent parents with genuine safety concerns over MMR from protecting their children, Elizabeth Miller of the Health Protection Agency responded, “…if we allowed parents the choice of single measles vaccines it would destroy our MMR programme.” The government’s concern appeared to be to protect the MMR programme over and above the protection of children. 

Despite the claim of David Salisbury, head of the UK’s Immunisation Division, that MMR has, “an exemplary safety record”, two of the three brands introduced in 1988 had to be withdrawn for safety reasons – they caused meningitis.

Government officials had approved these dangerous vaccines – Pluserix and Immravax – giving them the great majority of the UK market despite knowing that they were high risk and despite having been warned explicitly of their dangers. These government officials put price before children’s health and have been seeking to cover up this shameful fact ever since.

The US government has paid out millions of dollars to children whose autism followed vaccine-induced brain damage. A recent government concession in the US Vaccine Court confirms that the parents’ claims were valid all along. In a recently published December 13, 2012 vaccine court ruling, hundreds of thousands of dollars were awarded to Ryan Mojabi, whose parents described how “MMR vaccinations”, caused a “severe and debilitating injury to his brain, diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder [‘ASD’]”.

Later the same month, the government suffered a second major defeat when young Emily Moller from Houston won compensation following vaccine-related brain injury that, once again, involved MMR and resulted in autism.

The cases follows similar successful petitions in the Italian and US courts (including Hannah Poling, Bailey Banks, Misty Hyatt, Kienan Freeman, Valentio Bocca, and Julia Grimes) in which the governments conceded or the court ruled that vaccines had caused brain injury. In turn, this injury led to an ASD diagnosis. MMR vaccine was the common denominator in these cases.

The more light that shone on this subject by way of informed, balanced debate, the better. I am offering to debate any serious challenger on MMR vaccine safety and the role of MMR in autism, live, in public, and televised

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Eleven Vaccine Myths No One Will Say to Our Face

By Carolyn Flannery

Age of Autism

According to the CDC, 1 in 50 children now have autism in the US. The rate of autism and autism spectrum disorders has been rapidly increasing.

Rosie

1) Because Your Child Got Autism, mine got off scott free. Hard to really feel bad about that.

Did your child really get off scott free? Then why are there so many neurodevelopmental disorders? Why is your child overweight? ADD? ADHD? Allergic? The same toxins and mechanisms that caused autism in our children may well have caused a lower IQ in yours. Especially if he's a boy. Don't you think it's worth finding out before it's too late? Oh--and AUTISTIC kids have a lack of empathy? ? I don't think so.

2) We have "always" had people who acted like Asperger's. We all have some relative back in the family tree who was a little quirky, right?

Yes, and as long as we've had recorded human history with enough detail to mention disorders, even the Bible, we've had gold mining (which uses mercury to free the gold), and in the mid 1800's, mercury dental fillings. In the early 1900's through the present, industrial pollution from steel mills through coal mining. Minamata (Japanese mercury poisoning) victims had many symptoms similar to autism. And it took their government decades to admit it, destroying many lives.

3) The kids who used to be institutionalized and called retarded are now labeled autistic.

First of all California disproved this recently. But sadly, there is another reason this is a total fallacy. Due to abortions of babies who have been detected with Down's and other disorders, the rate of mental retardation and the types of children we may have seen in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, have gone way down. This is not something widely publicized or reported. But Autism is NOT the same thing. If you don't believe me, visit a special ed classroom of severely autistic children who are sometimes writhing in pain on the floor. Compare these to any Down's syndrome child. Visit the Special Olympics ask someone to point out the mentally retarded children vs the autistic children. It is clearly different. Ask some older volunteers how many autistic kids they saw when they started Special Olympics. Also, retarded children did not regress. Think of your grandmother with Alzheimer's. She was there, now she isn't. That's autism. Except for the children poisoned in utero. They never had the chance.

There is an easy way to check this. Just find a preschool teacher or daycare owner who has been teaching for over 25 years and ask him or her if they remember seeing autistic children in the 70's or 80's at the rate they are seeing them now. Ask elderly people if they remember stories of children impossible to potty train and nonverbal or vastly behind developmentally at the age of 6, 7, 8. Find some elderly nuns who used to teach. Ask them if they remember classrooms with 60 children in them actually functioning. . . not ideal, but functioning, and ask if that could happen now.

4) If Vaccines really caused autism, why would my trusted nurse, doctor, tell me to get vaccinated?

Anyone who challenges the safety--let alone the practice--of current vaccination ends up Wakefielded--which means reputation destroyed, career ruined, exiled, for speaking truth to power . . Still, most doctors and nurses truly believe they are doing the right thing (except for the frightened nurses who don't want to take a flu shot, either). Just talk to a Defeat Autism Now doctor who inadvertently poisoned their own child with vaccines to hear the sorrow of those who have lost their belief and trust in a system they invested their life into. Just as the CDC once said smoking was 'good for you' in the early 60's, and magazines of the time are filled with cigarette ads compromising honest reporting and questioning, so is our media dominated by ads by the same pharamaceutical companies that also make vaccines.

5) If Vaccines really caused autism, why doesn't EVERY child who gets vaccinated have autism ?

If peanut butter can really kill a child who is wildly allergic, why doesn't peanut butter kill every child? 

If overdosing on toothpaste is dangerous for some children why can't we accept that the cumulative effect of too much mercury, aluminum, and other toxins can kill or poison people?

If mercury hurts a fetus if its from tuna, why is it a stretch to say it hurts a fetus if its from a flu shot?

If lithium, a metal type element, treats bipolar, why is it a stretch to say other metals such as mercury injected into a baby might not affect behavior?

Just one example: Research shows that some children make less glutathione, which helps process mercury and toxins. Normally this variation would not matter--it only matters if someone is exposed to large amounts of toxins. However, tylenol depletes glutathione. Give a baby who makes low glutathione tylenol so the shot won't hurt, and the lack of glutathione becomes tragic. Give that same baby glutathione before the shot and just maybe he might be okay. Google Jill James and glutathione for details.

6) Autism isn't so bad. Some people think Edison, Einstein, and others have/had autism.

Perhaps this is true. However, Edison and Einstein dropped out of conventional schooling. Just imagine what ELSE they may have invented had they not had the documented social skills deficits that came with the autism. And imagine what the world would have lost had they received some mercury-laden shots as infants that locked that talent in. Had they been born in 1997 when hep b at birth started.

Autism is progressive among each generation--more proof it is caused by toxins. Perhaps these genes would lead to a quirky uncle in the 1900s, exposed to mercury making hats like the Mad Hatter or working in the steel mills . The next generation would have some children with bipolar and quirky asperger traits along with gifts. That generation might have a child die of Pink disease from the mercury in the tooth cream of that time. The generation that got Hep B at birth and then one after another vaccine might have a child who is totally nonverbal, in constant gut pain, and still in diapers at the age of 15. These are the children you don't see. The ones you see out and about are literally the tip of the ice berg. Autism isn't "okay" just because some extremely talented people got less poisoned, had family resources that could afford treatment, and were able to overcome some of their deficits.

7) Well maybe vaccines are just weeding out the most weak and taking them out of the gene pool. Or they would have died or gotten sick anyhow from the diseases the vaccine prevented.

The fact is the infants with the BEST immune systems are the most likely to react to the vaccines, which stimulate the immune systems. We are harming the BEST among us, the best and the brightest. Why are the kids in our stereotypes, the brightest kids, the ones in our memories from the 60s and 70's, the ones with glasses and allergies? Could it be that the best brains have always been the most susceptible to vaccine injury ? These toxins have been in the vaccines since the early 1930's. Some research shows that a high metabolism brain--which can mean a higher IQ- is more sensitive to toxins because it takes more toxins in.

8) There is nothing we can do about autism. Some kids will just outgrow it.

15 years ago parents were told that it was hopeless and nothing could be done. Those parents figured out that their children had been poisoned by vaccines and treated them according to methods based on science about how this could occur and how it could be reversed. Some of those children recovered. Instead of just saying they "outgrew" it, why isn't the CDC trying to study the children who recovered and find out what worked, what didn't work, and if those parents continued to vaccinate. If they are not going to stop autism from happening, at least they could try to understand how to reverse it and prevent it in vulnerable children. How to identify which children are vulnerable. And why haven't they studied "vaccinated" vs unvaccinated. If our children got harmed for the "greater good" then they deserve to be compensated and honored for that sacrifice.

9) If your child doesn't get vaccines, it puts my vaccinated child at risk.

Huh? Isn't it the other way around? If you really believe vaccines work, your child getting injected with live viruses (in some cases) puts MY child at risk. My child, who reacts to vaccinations and cannot tolerate them. My child whose once exquisite immune system now looks like that of an HIV victim with NK killer cells at 7. Thanks to his vaccines.

10) Autism is caused by two quirky parents getting married --the "WIRED" theory

Wait-- Correlation does not equal causation, right?? This is a cute theory but all it proves is that if you are very bright and technically proficient, and as a child got injured by mercury or vaccines making you quirky or uncoordinated and thus more apt to be nerdy, then married another quirky person who was very bright and got injured by mercury and vaccines as a child, your child is more likely to get injured by mercury and vaccines, and more likely to be more damaged by those toxins. And if he gets ten times MORE vaccines than you did, it's almost a given he'll get ADD or autism.

11) People who question vaccine safety are wackos and despise science. They just can't accept the fate that happened to them

Okay folks, think of every warning you ever saw "don't eat fish, it causes fetal damage" . "Don't buy a house with lead paint" . "Be careful what you do in pregnancy--don't take cold medicine even." "Uh oh there is aresenic in rice". "If you dispose of these vaccines or tooth fillings, they have to go into a toxic waste dump because they are poison". "There is a liability protection for vaccine manufacturers in case a child gets harmed by vaccines".

Okay if those warnings and protections are out there, there must be babies and children out there who DID get exposed to mercury in fish, who DID get exposed to lead paint, who did get harmed by toxins in fillings or vaccines.. Why is it such a stretch to connect these dots? Why are we so blind? Where are all these injured children whose parents didn't see the warnings in time? Could it be they have been labeled autistic? And why isn't there any effort, at all, to figure out how to reverse the effects of these toxins? Don't tell me there is arsenic in rice, tell me how to get it out of my child, and other children who have difficulties excreting toxins.

Every one of us DID Vaccinate our children. Because we DID believe the science we had seen. However, after our child developed symptoms, after our child who had been bright and alive started to act like our grandmothers as they descended into Alzheimer's, lost language, lost continence, lost everything, we started scouring pubmed, the inserts in the vaccine manufacturers information sheets. We saw that, GUESS WHAT? Vaccines DO harm some children and the government admits it at the same time it pretends they are 'perfectly safe'. The GOVT admitted in 1999 that mercury should be taken out of vaccines, but its still in vaccines shipped overseas.. A decade later it is still in flu vaccines given to pregnant women in America. What we can't accept is that THIS HAPPENED FOR NO REASON. The toxin didn't have to be in the shot. The medical community could have figured out how to detect vulnerable children and not vaccinate them on the same schedule. It didn't have to happen. And it's STILL HAPPENING TO OTHER CHILDREN in our name, in other countries, and in our name, here in America. And there is very little research into how to reverse it and help our child recover, and very little insurance coverage for helping our children recover, even for the documented treatments such as ABA.

What can you do to help the person who sent this link to you?Spend an hour today. Go to generationrescue.org and ageofautism.com. Read the studies, all linked from sites such as pubmed. Read the parent stories. The same story. Over and over. Read it and weep. Read it and rage. We did. And then join us in our fight to prevent autism, treat autism, and green our vaccines. Thank you for reading. It's the first step. And please forward or share. 

Carolyn Flannery is a biomed Mom recovering her child, she thanks Dr. Wakefield and the biomed Moms who have come before her. 

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