Category Archives: Big Pharma

Toxic metals study links to Autism

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Seventy-four percent!

74% of the studies examined showed a significant relationship between an ASD diagnosis and toxic metal exposure. These investigators concluded that the balance of studies support a link between ASD diagnoses and toxic metal exposure.

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Note further down that they also link heavy metals such as cadmium, arsenic and lead (from coal dust).

Okay, can we now stop drugging up our children with psychotropic drugs to help control symptoms and start addressing the real problem–our toxic environment and toxic amalgams?? It’s truly heartbreaking how many children have been misdiagnosed as autistic when they are displaying symptoms of heavy metal toxicity and acting out because they’re toxic…

 

More on mercury causing brain damage:

 

How many times do they have to find a correlation between mercury and neurological damage?  When do they stop “studying” and start putting solutions in action?

Angelina Jolie

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Has this at the New York Times on having a double mastectomy.  First, I want to say that I hope she is doing well and on her way to healing and recovery.  It must have been a difficult decision to make.

My grandmother died of breast cancer.  There is a lot of cancer in my family.   But I would not make the same choice as Angelina has done, even if I knew that I had the “breast cancer gene”.  There are too many unknowns about genes and their impact on disease.  As I have posted about before, there are factors about genes and the expression of their purpose that is *still* not understood by scientists.

More here on genes and the nutrition of the mother. Very interesting.  The usual focus is treating the problem after it occurs (or in Angelina’s case, before it occurs, but with drastic measures)…instead of  turning the focus to the toxic soup we’re living in that is the root cause of the disease.   Also, it does not focus on the understanding that diet of organic fruits and vegetables are key to good health and allowing the body to do what it miraculously does:  fight disease.

Why is that so hard to do?

Why can’t we be more proactive in trying to eliminate the causes instead of allowing it?

 

 

Mommy, the IRS is picking on me!!

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Really, the repub party should go from the “party of NO’ to the “party of whine”.  Good God, can they play the victim…

They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

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Since when is asking questions “singling-out” someone?  Asking questions is the IRS’s job.  And the last line of the above quote is enough to revoke their tax exempt status.

George Will is trying to compare this to Watergate.  Seriously?? How lame.

If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated.

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Committee members of Watergate- Senate:  three repubs on it.

A brief on the Watergate affair.

On CSPAN this morning, they had Jenny Martin, the CEO of Tea Party Patriots.  She was playing the victim well–without really offering any hard evidence of the accusations of the IRS…even when asked for specifics by a caller.  I listened carefully to her mini-speeches, and once when she began to divulge what actually occurred, she caught herself and went back to “safe mode” without giving the details.  Hmmm….

Meanwhile, when the point was made that the IRS has been inundated by groups  applying for tax exempt status, so there was possibly a backlog AND good reason to scrutinize these groups that don’t want to pay taxes.  (The irony here is that the Tea Party is all about reducing government workers, but it would appear that the backlog is created because of a lack of skilled workers to process them…)

It is clear that Tea Party Patriots is a political group and they promote their political causes aggressively…so why shouldn’t the IRS ask them pointed questions about their fundraising and their activities??  If you want to avoid taxes, you’d better be prepared to answer some questions.

(Gah, I never in a million years thought I’d be sticking up for the IRS.  Lord knows they’ve used their strong arm tactics on me–when I lost my house, they actually wanted to charge me for taking a profit(!!) and then when I owed a measily $200 (and didn’t have the money to pay them) they threatened to take what was left after the crash and burn. I did eventually pay it off in installments. but it was difficult at that point in time. )

“Speak your mind…

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…even if your voice shakes.” (quote by Maggie Kuhn.) ( Oh, those uppity Presbyterian women…  :p   –I was raised Presbyterian.)

The story isn’t clear on what exactly was happening, other than the teacher handed him a packet as educational instruction.   I’ll presume, then, it is the brainless edumucation of  No Child Left A Mind that he is actually protesting….a mindless program that takes away the teacher’s creativity and ability to teach intuitively…rather, she/he must teach to the test.  If they don’t…the child doesn’t do well on the test…their school loses funding…and the teacher loses his/her job.  The child, though, is the one that loses the most–their most creative years for exploring their world are lost—all based on a false premise that the testing is a true assessment of the child’s aptitude and abilities.

Warrior princesses

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My heroes. 

They put into words what a celiac goes through with the *cough* medical profession….clueless doctors who charge $$ to tell you that it’s all in your head.

I like the one who told the patient she couldn’t feel pain in the gut…say what??

I’d like to see the Wisconsin Tea Party legislators tangle with these gals. Pass the popcorn. (Ooh, wait, what was I thinking??…Um, pass the gluten free snack. 🙂  Still not used to the idea of not having some things…<sigh>   )

ALEC fighting open records

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This up from PR Watch on ALEC’s latest: asserting that its communications with public legislators is private….

Isn’t it amazing how the folks who insist on the Patriot Act and having the right to examine your private phone conversations, emails, library records, bank records, etc., are the same ones insisting that they have a right to privacy….??  The story states that there are cases where the communications can be private–in some states they don’t have to make their communications public knowledge…but it stops there and doesn’t explore that point further.

So…I went on a quick search and found this resource to each state’s open door laws.  As with any law, though, it’s only as good as the people behind it.  That is, if you have a group of people bent on keeping things secret with financial resources to keep their secrets, while those that try to find information lacking in financial resources…well, the law isn’t worth much…

The Stingray

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I have a gorgeous photo of a group of Golden Stingrays on my calendar this month–somewhat similar to this.

National Geographic has this piece describing them.

A nice video here on them:

Ocean Conservancy has this up on the possible threat to rays.   There are some species that are endangered, according to this.   I guess the question is…does it make sense to keep pushing the envelope until a species is endangered, or is it better to pull back and not push it to the edge?  Why is it so hard for us to keep the balance?

 

Kelp and arsenic

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A member posted they did not take kelp supplements because of the high arsenic content.  I was aware of the possible contamination with heavy metals, but it’s always good to check and re-check supplements to see the latest.

I have been taking Solgar brand kelp, because Solgar is a good brand…but that doesn’t mean I should slack off….so…

I went on a search this morning trying to find out the exact content of arsenic in kelp.  I found a disturbing study out of UC Berkeley…that tested several brands of kelp and found arsenic in all of them but one.  The aggravating part of the story is that they did not name the brands!  WTH? (One also needs to keep in mind that universities are not islands in the $$ funding arena, so their “studies” may be heavily influenced by donations from corporations.  Supplements have been the target of Big Pharma for years…they would love nothing better than to destroy the supplement industry because it cuts into their $$ billion dollar profits. Greed. Greed. Greed.) (also–many pharmaceuticals are derived from plant properties. Another site here.)

Doing a search, I came up empty on Solgar when looking for specific data stating arsenic content.

I found these links:  Vegan health on supplementing with iodine.  I notice they recommend potassium iodide by Nature’s Plus because it isn’t made from kelp, thus avoiding arsenic contamination.  I am always skeptical about sites that recommend a specific brand.  I saw this on three different sites that had the same format–a red flag is raised.  Not that I think Nature’s Plus is a bad brand, only that the authors of these sites perhaps are receiving some sort of compensation for the recommendation, which would influence their judgment and perhaps they would not state adverse problems with the product.

This article recommends Lugol’s for replacing iodine.  Lugol’s is a popular supplement on the mercury support group.

This page states that Solgar, among others, is a good brand that is not loaded with toxic heavy metals.  The connection of fluoride displacing iodine in the thyroid….and yet they continue putting fluoride in public drinking water.  Also note his assertion that kelp is superior due to the minute minerals it adds plus the bioavailability (it isn’t going to do you much good if your body doesn’t recognize it and absorb it).   He recommends against Lugol’s because of… possible toxicity in the liver…this is especially worrisome for heavy metal poisoned folks like moi--the liver and kidneys take direct hits from the stupid mercury poison and therefore have a tough time processing toxins like they would normally–care needs to be taken.

I like that he also considers kelp a balancing food between yin and yang (not that I understand yin and yang to a deep degree–just know that it’s an Asian approach to medicine of balance).

 

 

FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?

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(As I first started reading this, I thought of a pun with the title:  “Something’s fishy”  but PR Watch beat me to it in their write up. Heh.)

(So…I’ll have to settle for the boring title of FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?)

Note in the comments section the paid flack who attacks the article not based on facts, but wild accusations….um-hmmm…

There are a million souls who do not want frankenfish.  (and probably millions more would be protesting if they only knew what was going on) .

What does it take for American citizens to be heard?  And why is this garbage science of Genetically Modified organisms released without a) thorough testing by independent research labs with no financial/political gain;  b) without follow-up by independent research to investigate the damage that they have caused; and c) why isn’t the entire ecological system considered when making these decisions…?

 

 

 

Shining the light

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PR Watch has a report up on the growing gaps between CEO pay and worker pay:   http://www.prwatch.org/NODE/12060

This is just wrong.  They’re closing factories and moving them overseas because, as they claim, American workers want too much –safe work conditions and a living wage…

…while CEO’s are making astounding salaries…

I have no words.