Life
is a Joke A man told his doctor that he wasn’t able to do all the things around the house that he used to do. When the examination was complete, he said, “Now, Doc, I can take it. Tell me in plain English what is wrong with me.” “Well, in plain English,” the doctor replied, “you’re just lazy.” “OK,” said the man. “Now give me the medical term so I can tell my wife.” So how many of you fully intend to continue your life “as is”
as long as someone else will give you an excuse that allows you to get away with it? Think
about it. If you want something different to happen, you must do something
different. Corrections OK, folks, last issue I made a couple misstatements and several of
you have corrected me, so obviously those political personalities are important to you. It
was Al Gore, not Dole who did the global warming movie. (Geez, they both have four-letter
words as their names with a big “o” in them, and one damn lying politician is
the same to me as any other). Also, it was Prez Raygun, not that womanizing Clintonista (“It
depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”) who decided catsup/ketchup was
a vegetable. Sorry. J Watchdog 1. For Dr Mike
Fitzpatrick, the saga of soya
began in Monty Python-style with a dead parrot. His investigations into the ubiquitous
bean started in 1991 when Richard James, a multimillionaire American lawyer, turned up at
the laboratory in New Zealand where Fitzpatrick was working as a consultant toxicologist.
James was sure that soya beans were killing his rare birds. “We thought he was mad,
but he had a lot of money and wanted us to find out what was going on,” Fitzpatrick
recalls. Over the next months, Fitzpatrick carried out an exhaustive study of soya and its
effects. “We discovered quite quickly,” he recalls, “that soya contains toxins and plant estrogens
powerful enough to disrupt women’s menstrual cycles in experiments. It also
appeared damaging to the thyroid.”
James’s lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the British
government’s expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT) published the results of
its inquiry into the safety of plant estrogens, mainly from soya proteins, in modern food.
It concluded that in general the
health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and judged that
there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain age groups. Yet
little has happened to curb soya’s growth since. More
than 60% of all processed food in Britain today contains soya in some form, according to food industry estimates.
It is in breakfast cereals, cereal
bars and biscuits, cheeses, cakes, dairy desserts, gravies, noodles, pastries, soups,
sausage casings, sauces and sandwich spreads. Soya, crushed, separated and refined
into its different parts, can appear on food labels as soya flour, hydrolysed
vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein,
vegetable oil (simple, fully, or partially hydrogenated), plant sterols, or the emulsifier
lecithin. Its many guises hint at its value to manufacturers. More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1828158,00.html What can we add to this,
other than to say, “We told you so!” Even Dr. Mercola has a rant about this on
one of his older sites (January 2006), stating that there are decades worth of evidence
that eating soy is harmful to your health. Check out his version at: http://www.mercola.com/2006/feb/7/experts_finally_recognize_the_dangers_with_soy.htm Too bad the good doctor
does not fully understand fungi and mycotoxins, because he seems to think that fermenting
soy takes away most of its harmful effects. Sadly, while that might tone down the estrogen
issue, it increases the risk of fungi and their metabolic mycotoxins. And, these nice lab
people who wrote the above article were not testing for that issue. You know about
it (if you’ve been reading these newsletters), so steer away from soy whenever
possible, and read those labels! 2.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- You’ll
be paying more for your cereal this fall, and that will allow Kellogg and rivals to
keep fueling their ad budgets. The Battle Creek, Mich., giant is the latest in a string of
marketers to fly in the face of the last decade of discounting trends and instead ratchet
up prices, and its rivals in the $6 billion ready-to-eat-cereal category are expected to
follow suit. You’re
already paying too much for such poisons, so if this price hike (for no better reason than
they don’t want to decrease their marketing budgets) ticks you off, just stop buying
their crap. http://adage.com/article?article_id=110820
3. Aug
2, 2006
STOCKHOLM - Eating more processed
meats such as bacon, sausage and smoked ham increases the risk of stomach cancer,
Swedish scientists said on Wednesday. … The institute said processed meats were often salted or
smoked, or had nitrates added to them, in order to extend their shelf-life which
could be connected to the increased risk of stomach cancer, the fourth most common type of
cancer. More
at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14150738/ It’s not like we
haven’t already told you this, but here the scientists are finally agreeing with us. 4. Aug 1, 2006 ATLANTA - More than three-quarters of obese Americans say
they have healthy eating habits, according to a survey of more than 11,000 people. About
40 percent of obese people also said they do “vigorous” exercise at least three
times a week, the
telephone survey found. “There
is, perhaps, some denial going on. Or there is a lack of understanding of what does it
mean to be eating healthy, and what is vigorous exercise,” said Dr. David
Schutt of Thomson Medstat, the Michigan-based health-care research firm that conducted the
survey. More at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14140990/ Not only do most people not
understand what healthy eating is, perhaps because they have been brainwashed by
advertising (Hey, that candy bar company said there are healthy antioxidants in here
– YUMMMM...), but most overweight people seriously believe if they get one bead of
sweat by moving their butts off the couch far enough to locate the remote, that
constituted “vigorous” exercise. Add to that, the comments I made in the last
newsletter about the psychology of physical senses versus mental sense and you might be
able to see that most obese people actually do believe they are eating healthy or doing
serious workouts by sweeping the floor a couple times a week. Sigh… 5. July 25, 2006—Doctors at Columbia University Medical Center have discovered the molecular pathways that pain travels and may also have found a way to turn off that pain. The researchers have applied for a patent to develop a new class of drugs that will interfere with this molecular pathway and block the enzymes that cause neurons to signal pain. Their whole story is at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C205516%2C00.html Personally, I have a real problem with this. It is not just because they are making one more drug, which they want to patent before they’ll tell us more about it, but because this is intended for chronic pain sufferers. I have chronic low back pain, so I might be a candidate for this stuff, but… I am already a very reluctant user of the simple pain reliever Hydrocodone. Reluctant? Yes, because the body sends pain signals for a reason, and when your brain gets those pain signals, it is supposed to do something about them. The answer is not so simple as to merely shut down the molecules that send such communications, which only relieves you of the feeling that you should be doing something about the pain. You don’t have to worry about it now. Wait! What reason do I have for wanting pain? So I know when I am hurting my body and when I have done something right to help it to not hurt. I don’t want to merely mask symptoms; I want to fix the problem. If I can never feel that there is a problem, how do I even know I need to fix anything? Yes, I am weird, but I choose not to follow conventional medicine’s path of being dumbed down and shut up so I will quit asking questions. I suspect that most chronic pain sufferers who choose to take this, or any other pain killer on a regular schedule (as opposed to when they “feel” the pain), will be on the medicine for life because they assume (or have been told by their doctor) that this pain will always be there, so they need to take this pill four times a day for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine being brave enough to stop taking it long enough to at least find out if the pain is even still there? What if the pain went away 10 years ago, but you’re still taking the pill? Here’s a side-effect of pain pills (generalization) that is never listed in the PDR: they make you stupid. Now isn’t that convenient? Let’s slow down the neuron firing process, which will make you feel less pain, but it also takes you an hour to make a decision that used to take only seconds, and now you’ve forgotten what you were trying to figure out anyway. Maybe it was whether or not to quit taking this pain pill, but given that you are stupid now because of the pill, you’ll just keep buying it and taking it like the compliant little sheep they want you to be. Down with all pain drugs! Heck with drugs… down with pants! Yeah, that’s the ticket. Morgan Fairchild… yeah. J 6. An editorial in the
New York Times, 4 Aug 2006, says, “Please Hold the Free Lunches.” Doctors are deluding themselves when they say their
medical judgment can’t be influenced by something as trivial as a deli sandwich.
When the sandwiches are delivered en masse for the entire medical staff, courtesy of drug
companies that are touting their wares while the doctors eat, the physicians are
swallowing a lot more than ham-and-cheese on rye. Otherwise, the drug companies would not
be offering their lunchtime spreads. The insidious nature of these “free
lunches” was laid bare by Stephanie Saul in The Times last Friday. At a
four-story medical building in New Hyde Park on Long Island, steaming containers of
Chinese food and trays of gourmet sandwiches were delivered to receptive medical
practices, courtesy of various drug companies. Sometimes morning pastries and coffee were
on the menu as well. All the solicitous drug companies wanted was a little of the harried
doctors’ time to plug their products. Thus Merck was happy to pay $258 to provide
Chinese food to the 20 or more doctors and employees of a pulmonary practice so that its
sales representatives could tout the virtues of an osteoporosis drug and an asthma
treatment in a relaxed setting. Nationwide,
such lunches are believed to cost the pharmaceutical industry hundreds of millions of
dollars a year, a marketing cost the companies are happy to absorb in hopes of bolstering sales of high-priced
prescription drugs. The doctors always insist that they can’t be bought.
But a former sales representative for two drug companies said the lunches were “incredibly
effective” in lifting the number of prescriptions from practices that got the free
food, and a medical school doctor who is examining the issue believes the lunches do influence
prescribing. Some doctors seem to rely on free lunches… http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04fri2.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 7. What’s the average IQ of Americans? I would
have said 100, which is the median of the bell curve for IQ tests, but apparently the CDC
thinks we are all third-graders. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has come up with a brilliant new way to teach
Americans too stupid to understand numbers how to wash their hands: Sing the “Happy Birthday”
song to themselves while they scrub their hands. When the song is over, the washing is
done! Mike Adams has written a
short article that ought to give you a good laugh (though if CDC is serious, we should
cry), available at: http://www.newstarget.com/019876.html 8. 19/07/06 A Food
and Drug Administration (FDA)
report requested by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees concerning the agency’s efforts to stop
inaccurate nutrition information and misleading health-related claims on food labels is
itself misleading, according to the lobby group Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI). The FDA report implies
that agency inspectors checked more than 28,000 food labels for inaccurate nutrition
information within a recent 14 month period when in reality, the CSPI says, the inspectors merely checked to see whether
a Nutrition Facts panel was present on the label, not whether it was
accurate. More can be read at: http://foodingredientsfirst.com/newsmaker_article.asp?idNewsMaker=11552&fSite=AO545&next=pr
So folks,
it is extremely likely that when you read a label that says “0 Trans Fats” or
“Made with Real Fruit,” it is a lie. 9. Dr. Mercola is
unloading on the bird flu BS and vaccines in general, which I found so delightful, I
figured I should share it with those of you who do not regularly access his diatribes. Links to his background
articles included (blue underlined). Apparently,
those “Cry Wolf” warnings about a bird flu epidemic that
never came have made some state health officials increasingly
leery about stockpiling enough vaccines to guard against an imaginary pandemic. A wise choice
indeed, considering Tamiflu is a
worthless, harmful drug that lines the pockets of a select few,
including U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Flu vaccines are also ineffective
(Tamiflu and Relenza are antiviral drugs, not vaccines as many people think). Previous
studies have found that the flu vaccine is only 40 percent effective in
preventing illness in the elderly -- if it’s even the
vaccine providing the benefit at all, and not just the better health care those who can
afford vaccines are getting -- and these new studies bear those numbers out. For most
people, the flu shot does not
prevent illness, but actually does just the opposite -- it weakens your immune
system and makes you more predisposed to the illness. They’re also
loaded with neurotoxic substances like mercury and
aluminum. Relate this to the label
problem the FDA has, and the re-definition of some words, and you’ll find that when
your doctor tells you the new vaccines contain no mercury, he is lying (perhaps without
knowing he is) because “mercury free” now means it contains one microgram or
less.[1] Regardless of “the law,” there is no truth in advertising in
this country anymore! And apparently the doctors are not required to give you mercury-free
vaccine unless you demand it or you are an infant. Note 1: According to the
Mercury-Free
Vaccines Act of 2005, the bill states: SEC. 351B (a)
In General- For purposes of section 501(j) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,
and subject to subsection (b), a vaccine is a banned mercury-containing vaccine under this
section if 1 dose of the vaccine
contains 1 or more micrograms of mercury in any form. See http://www.theorator.com/bills109/hr881.html for full text of that
bill. Note also that Sec. 2 (6) says There is no law or regulation to
prohibit the reintroduction of thimerosal into any products from which it has been removed,
leaving open the possibility that it may be reintroduced at some point in the future in
new vaccines or vaccines from which it has already been removed. Basically, what that
means is the whole bill is all political double-speak because you’ll never know what
you’re getting. So, refuse all vaccines and get healthy on your own. 10. WASHINGTON
— In 1992, Brent R. Wilkes rented a suite at the Hyatt Hotel a few blocks from the
Capitol. In his briefcase was a
stack of envelopes for a half-dozen congressmen, each packet containing up to $10,000 in
checks. Want to know how easy it
is to bribe a Congress Critter to change the laws in your favor? Check out this NY Times
article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/washington/06wilkes.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 11. Back in 1999,
several months after my stroke and subsequent brain surgery, I was having a great deal of
trouble making my right arm and my right hand function properly. I gave a directive (via
Field of Intentions) to my brain to find new pathways to use so my conscious mind could
tell my fingers to hold the pencil properly. This was super important to me because I am
an artist (among many other avocations) and to barely be able to hold a pencil, turning my
signature into a scribble, was extremely frustrating. The idea of never being able to draw
again hurt me a lot. I knew I could train my left hand to sign a check or use a computer
mouse, but I also decided that I would find a way to make my brain rewire itself to regain
those lost functions. Well, I did, and my right arm is fully functional today. But, I was
never able to convince anyone that this was indeed possible. They claimed there had to be
some other explanation. Well, here is evidence that rewiring is possible. For the first
time, scientists have been able to
watch neurons within the brain of a living animal change in response to experience.
… “This work represents a technological breakthrough,” said first author
Kuan Hong Wang, a research scientist at the Picower Institute who will launch his own
laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health in the fall. “This is the first
study that demonstrates the ability to directly visualize the molecular activity of
individual neurons in the brain of live animals at a single-cell resolution, and to observe the changes in the activity in
the same neurons in response to the changes of the environment on a daily basis for
a week.” If you care to learn
more, go to: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19303 12. Apparently we are
not the only ones who believe high fructose corn syrup is the guilty chemical in America’s
obesity problem. Abstract: This review explores whether fructose consumption might be a contributing
(Ha!
Is THE main)
factor to the development of obesity and the accompanying metabolic
abnormalities observed in the insulin resistance syndrome. The per capita disappearance data for
fructose from the combined consumption of sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup
have increased by 26%, from 64 g/d in 1970 to 81 g/d in 1997. More at American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/5/911 13. The Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA) now seems to be openly abandoning any last
remnants of journalistic integrity by announcing it will not ban the
publishing of studies written by
authors who hide their financial ties with drug companies. JAMA, which has long
been recognized by critics as the propaganda mouthpiece of Big Pharma, says it is afraid
of being sued by drug companies if it refuses to print the pro-drug studies written by
these researchers who receive money from those very same companies. Can you say, “Circle
of corruption?” Read the JAMA admission at: http://www.newstarget.com/019914.html 14. Recently
unearthed documents show that the drug company Bayer sold millions of dollars worth of
an injectable blood-clotting medicine -- Factor VIII concentrate, intended for
hemophiliacs -- to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, although they knew that it was tainted
with AIDS. … The company stopped selling the drug in the United States in
1984, but continued to sell it overseas for an additional year. … Records show that the company continued to sell the
medicine overseas in an attempt to avoid being left with a large stock of a drug that was
no longer marketable in the United States. The dangers of the drug had become
well-known domestically, but the news was slower to reach other parts of the world. Bayer
also continued to manufacture the
medicine for several months after pulling it from the market in the United States, because it was cheaper to produce
than the new, safer product they were introducing as a replacement. FDA regulators helped to keep the
continued sales hidden, asking the company that the problem be ‘‘quietly
solved without alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public,’’ according to the minutes of a 1985
meeting. To me, this is
tantamount to murder. Why haven’t they been prosecuted? Money talks. More at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A00E4DA1F3EF931A15756C0A9659C8B63 15. August 2, 2006—Non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been linked to a slightly increased risk of heart
attack, according to a
new study in Finland. Researchers looked at data on 33,309 heart-attack patients and found
that the use of NSAIDs increased the risk of having a heart attack by 40 percent. (GULP! 40% is a slight increase???) NSAIDs include
such popular over-the-counter drugs as ibuprofen, aspirin, and naproxen, as well as
prescription drugs like Celebrex. Read more at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14150743/ 16. MILWAUKEE -
Americans have sipped their way to fatness by drinking far more soda and other sugary
drinks over the last four decades, a new scientific review concludes.
An
extra can of soda a day can pile on 15 pounds (7 kilograms) in a single year, and the evidence strongly suggests
that this sort of increased consumption is a key reason that more people have gained
weight, the researchers say. More at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14247852/ 17. For anyone of you
still interested in the RFID attachment to the drugs you use: The Food and
Drug Administration offered a reminder to the pharmaceutical industry that by December companies will be required to
provide pedigree tracking for prescription drugs all the way along the supply chain from
manufacture to consumer sale. The full article is
located at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2000805,00.asp?kc=EWGOVEMNL080906EOAD 18A. The power of
positive thinking: Before the antidepressant ever gets swallowed, before it dissolves and
makes its way through the bloodstream and deep within the gray matter of the brain, some
depressed patients start feeling
better because they think they will. Experiments have shown that healing from
depression starts in some people, called placebo responders, even when the drug given is
just a sugar pill. From L.A. Times: 18B. Regarding
antidepressants, The Washington Post says: A huge study
found that patients on
antidepressants rarely get the psychiatric therapy needed right after they start the drugs,
a time when risk of suicidal behavior can rise temporarily. Their story is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080900071.html And why would they need
therapy? Because one of the side effects of antidepressant drugs is depression with
suicidal tendencies. Fine… I feel lousy, so I go to the doctor, who gives me a pill,
and if I don’t believe the pill will create a miracle (nocebo effect, opposite of
what is mentioned in item 18A), then the drug hits me with a feeling that I want to end it
all, but the doctor is now busy selling pills to the next patient, and there isn’t a
shrink to be found, so have I helped myself, or hurt myself further from that doctor
visit? It is my belief (which obviously is not the belief of any doctor in this
country) that psychological issues (e.g., depression) should never be handled with
a pill, but should be counseled. Most depressed people can be brought out of it
just by having another human take interest in them and their problems. They don’t
need a pill; they need a friend. Then that friend needs to whack them upside the head and
tell them to get over it. J 19. Exposure to ultrasound while pregnant
may affect brain development in the fetus… Their story is at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9691-ultrasound-may-disrupt-fetal-brain-development.html While this was a study
on mice, medical doctors don’t want anyone to stop their valuable ultrasounds, so
they are claiming it won’t harm humans. When I finally get that Your Body’s
Electrical System article finished, I will be showing you how all unnatural radiations
(sound, electro-magnetic, flashing light, ultraviolet, X-ray, etc.) applied to the body,
whether they be cell phones, microwaves, radio transmissions, using electrical appliances
in your home… or ultrasounds, have some degree of negative effect. This effect
would naturally be higher for a developing fetus because they are slightly less protected
(shielded) than adults. My guess on the doctors’ claims for this article are 1) they
don’t want to lose the income generated from doing these unnecessary tests, and 2) even if
your child comes out stupid, that is a guarantee of future income for the doctors, so why
should they care? Perhaps that last question begs an article by itself on what motivates
humans to do what they do in this day and age. It appears, on the surface, to be purely
the pursuit of money (read that as “greed”), but does that mean the true
humanitarian is gone forever? Send me your opinion. 20. Still worried about
heavy metals like mercury? Still think you only get contact with these through
fish and teeth fillings? Do you own a car older than a 2003 model? Well, many of them
have mercury in the light switches (and some other parts). This New York Times article is
an interesting read: Mercury
is one of the most toxic air pollutants, and vehicle parts have been the
fourth biggest source of it, after coal-fired power plants, industrial boilers and gold
mining, according to the agency. In terms of salvageable mercury, California leads among
the states, with 11.6 tons of mercury in vehicles on the road, followed by Texas with 5.8
tons and Florida with 5.6 tons. More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/washington/12mercury.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 21.
For those of you who think we use big words, try this one: The circadian
rhythm of glucocorticoids is regulated by a gating mechanism residing in the adrenal
cortical clock. In mammals, including humans, a master clock in the brain and
subordinate clocks found in organs throughout the body coordinate daily, or circadian,
rhythms of behavior and physiology. Sigh. It’s still an interesting article:
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19368
22A. Reducing the size of abdominal fat cells
- which are a risk factor for diabetes and heart disease - takes more than cutting calories,
according to new research from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Didn’t I tell you
that you need to exercise? http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19341 22B. Same basic subject: Older people with high waist-hip ratios
(WHRs) have a higher mortality risk than those with a high body mass index, or BMI,
a new study reveals. More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19339 23. NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Stevia, an herbal sugar substitute
that is not approved for that use by the Food and Drug Administration, is fast becoming “sweetener to the
stars” as a result of a high-powered public-relations effort focused on
celebrity use of the product. Their
story can be read at: http://adage.com/article?article_id=111116 What
does this mean to you? Likely nothing, except you can expect the price of stevia to go up
as it becomes more popular. Or, if it becomes too popular and needs to be heavily
mass-produced, expect the quality to go down as well as the price going up. Even natural
food producers suffer from the universal human disease of Greed. 24. WASHINGTON
– Aug,15, 2006 - Breast
cancer patients seem to suffer more serious side effects from chemotherapy than previously
thought.
Roughly one in six of
such women wind up at the emergency room or hospitalized because of such side effects as
infection, low blood counts, dehydration or nausea, researchers reported Tuesday. Duh!!! These damn
things are toxic poisons. No one should take chemo!!! It does not
cure anyone! Their story can be read at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14363825/ 25. Because I
beat this one to death on a regular basis, I’ll just give you the headline and you
can choose to go to their site (or not): Risky Rx:
Drug maker’s secret strategies ‘Disturbing’ glimpse into how marketing dupes doctors — and
patients. Commentary by Robert Bazell, Chief science and health correspondent
for NBC News, Aug.15, 2006. Read what he has to say at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14348176/ 26. ACCOMAC, Va. - A 16-year-old cancer patient’s legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family’s attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy. Full story at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14371567/ I am glad he won the case, yet I am still extremely pissed that he had to go to court at all to determine who had the right to decide on his choice of health care. Does his body belong to him, or to the state? Tell me again, in which country do we live?I
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