Farmers: Raw milk bans protect big industry

MARIE LANDAU / In These Times 

(Excerpts from article below; full story here)

Government, public health and dairy industry officials want to restrict the sale and distribution of raw (unpasteurized) milk, citing grave safety concerns. But small dairy farmers, organic consumers’ advocates and raw milk drinkers say the issue isn’t safety—it’s control of the dairy market.

In January, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) proposed new regulations that would ban off-the-farm sale and distribution of raw milk. Prior to making the revamped regulations public, MDAR issued cease-and-desist orders to four milk-buying clubs that buy raw milk directly from small farmers and distribute it among members.

Considering the relative safety of raw milk and its possible health benefits, campaigns against its legalization are surprisingly intense, and not just in Massachusetts.

David Gumpert, author ofThe Raw Milk Revolution, says that regulation is “not about safety—it’s about protecting markets.”

Click here for more

Government cracking down on nutritious food

Surveillance video appears to show officers from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office walking through Aajonus Vonderplanitz's Rawsome Foods with guns drawn. Image via LA Times

“If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”  

                             -Thomas Jefferson

BY ABELLE787 / Empowered Citizens

Lately, the Web has been abuzz with reports of "raids" on health food stores. One such event occurred June 30 at Rawesome Foods in Venice, California. The crime? Selling raw milk. Armed federal, state and local authorities seized raw goat and cow milk and unpasteurized goat cheese, among other things.

Government regulators say they are just enforcing rules to protect consumers (despite that raw milk is nutritionally dense and has been consumed in its raw state for thousands of years) and give producers a level playing field. Store owners beg to differ.

"This is about control and profit, not our health," said Aajonus Vonderplanitz, co-founder of Rawesome Foods. "How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?"

Well,  I guess next authorities will start seizing cigarettes, alcohol and high fructose corn syrup. I know they'll do this, because the listed items are far more dangerous than unpasteurized milk. The government, Big Pharma and  Agribusiness just want us to be healthy. They have our best interests at heart, right?

Oh, wait...

See stories below:

Raw food highlights a hunger

Raids on the rise

George Carlin: Who really controls America

Controlling water

Here is a trailer to the new movie "Tapped"

Polish crash cameraman allegedly murdered

In the video footage,   four alleged gunshots can be heard   (Listen closely at the 1:07, 1:17, 1:23 and 1:26 marks).  After the first shot,   the cameraman says something to the effect of  "what the f***" as he appears to flee the crash site.   After more shots and shouts   (some say the Russian translation of the shouts are commands to shoot and later to pull out),  the cameraman repeats his earlier phrase,  and the video ends.

Here is the translation of the story from a Polish Web site:

"Author of the video seen by everyone by now has been stabbed near Kijow on 4.15 and transported in critical condition to the hospital in Kijow. On 4.16 three unidentified individuals unplugged him from life support system and stabbed him three more times. Andrij was pronounced dead that afternoon. Russian government claims it was a coincidence." 

Whether this is true or not, I believe it deserves the benefit of a doubt. The plane was filled with important Polish heads of state (including the president), bankers and parliament members, who were on their way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of a World War II massacre of 22,000 Polish officers. The murders were covered up for a long time. Here is a CNN piece that elaborates on this.

China's view of the Toyota recalls

Here is part of an article translated from Chinese:

YU FENGHUI (余丰慧) / Xinhua Net
Translated By Jake Curtis

After the Toyota issue broke out, the U.S. government played a major role in the auto recall. Public opinion shows that the U.S. is deliberately making a show of power by pressuring Toyota and seeking to promote its domestic automakers following the financial crisis. However, the U.S. is using its national power to fight the mighty Toyota and protect its own consumers. Globally, Toyota recalled an estimated 8.5 million cars, of which 6 million, or 70 percent of the total amount recalled, were in the United States. Aside from Toyota’s high sales in the U.S., the U.S. government’s harsh attack has little to do with the recall.

For the full translated story, click here
For the original story in Chinese, click here

Drugging our babies - a disturbing trend

EVELYN PRINGLE / Natural News

The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental disorders.

The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2 through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the January, 2010, "Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry."

The number of children in this age group diagnosed with bipolar disorder also doubled over the last decade, Reuters reported.

Of antipsychotic-treated children in the 2007 study sample, the most common diagnoses were pervasive developmental disorder or mental retardation (28.2%), ADHD (23.7%), and disruptive behavior disorder (12.9%).

The study reported that fewer than half of drug treated children received a mental health assessment (40.8%), a psychotherapy visit (41.4%), or a visit with a psychiatrist (42.6%) during the year of antipsychotic use.

"Antipsychotics, which are being widely and irresponsibly prescribed for American children--mostly as chemical restraints--are shown to be causing irreparable harm," warned Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, in a February 26, 2010 InfoMail.

"These drugs have measurable severe hazardous effects on vital biological systems, including: cardiovascular adverse effects that result in shortening lives; metabolic adverse effects that induce diabetes and the metabolic syndrome," she wrote. "Long-term use of antipsychotics has been shown to result in metabolic syndrome in 40% to 50% of patients."

The lead researcher on the study above, Columbia University psychiatry professor Mark Olfson, told Reuters that about 1.5% of all privately insured children between the ages of 2 and 5, or one in 70, received some type of psychiatric drug in 2007, be it an antipsychotic, a mood stabilizer, a stimulant or an antidepressant.

Psychiatric drugs bathe the brains of growing children with agents that threaten the normal development of the brain, according to Dr Peter Breggin, founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), and author of about 20 books, including "Medication Madness."

The drugs themselves are causing severe disorders in millions of children in the US, he warns. "Substances like antidepressants, stimulants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotic drugs cause severe, and potentially permanent, biochemical imbalances."


Click here for the full story

Are you comfortable with this?

Once upon a time, the purpose of conducting the U.S. census was to apportion the members of the House of Representatives. Once upon a time, all you had to do was report how many people were living in your household. Why does the government now need to know, among other things, how many times a day you go to the bathroom?

Time to stock up on incandescent bulbs?

Congress has passed a law that says all incandescent light bulbs must be phased out by 2014, replaced by CFL (compact fluorescent) bulbs. What we're seldom told is that CFL bulbs pose serious health dangers. The bulbs contain mercury, one of Earth's most toxic elements. Most CFL bulbs contain four to five milligrams of mercury. That's enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of clean water. 

These so-called "green" bulbs already occupy landfills around the nation, the mercury seeping into ground water. Where garbage is burned, the toxic element is released into the air we breathe. As time goes on and incandescents are eliminated, the problem will only grow more serious.

If a CFL bulb shatters, you can forget the days of sweeping up the shards with a broom and tossing them in the trash. Rather, you should treat the broken glass as you would a shattered thermometer. The EPA advises opening a window, evacuating the building for 15 minutes, then returning with duct tape to pick up the broken glass. After this, one is to put the glass shards and duct tape into a glass jar, screw on a tight lid and take it to a toxic dump. I have a feeling most American households won't be going this route.

This specific disposal information is not widely known, as CFL bulb packages don't list these steps. So, how are Americans supposed to know about the dangers of CFLs and about the proper disposal procedures? The media, maybe? It's a rare occurrence that the media pay this issue any attention. Here is a clip of one such rare occurrence:

Papers, please

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a spending bill last week that contains provisions to establish a biometric national ID card. The Senate may approve the measure in the next few days. The ID card is supposed to crack down on illegal immigration. The card will contain embedded information, such as fingerprints. It may also contain a tracking chip.

LAURA MECKLER / Wall Street Journal

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

Click here for the full story.

Is your neighbor a communist? Oops, I mean, terrorist?

Below is a sound clip of an anti-terrorism advertisement played during a popular UK radio show, TalkSport. 

Here's a transcript:

The following message is brought to you by TalkSport and the Anti-Terrorist Hotline. The man at the end of the street doesn't talk to his neighbors much, because he likes to keep himself to himself. He pays with cash, because he doesn't have a bank card. He keeps his curtains closed, because his house is on a bus route. This may mean nothing. But together, it could all add up to you having suspicions. We all have a role to play in combating terrorism. If you see anything suspicious, call the confidential anti-terrorist hotline on 0-800-789-321. If you suspect it, report it.

So, be a good citizen. Trust no one, and spy on your cash-using, curtain-drawing terrorist neighbor. It's the patriotic thing to do.

As an aside, what would happen if we were to take the word terrorist, swap it with the word communist, rewind about 50 years and play the commercial during the McCarthy era? I'm sure no one would notice.

Think you're healthy? There's a pill for that.

"We won't stop being sick until we stop making ourselves sick...There is a point where even the most universal government health program can't help you. They can't outlaw unhealthy food, or alcohol or cigarettes...Because you see, the government isn't your nanny. They're your dealer. And they subsidize illness in America. They have to. There's too much money in it.  You see, there is no money in healthy people. And there's no money in dead people. The money is in the middle. People who are alive (sort of) but with one or more chronic condition that puts them in need of Celebrex or Nasonex or Valtrex or Lunesta. Fifty years ago, children didn't get type II diabetes, and now it's an emerging epidemic. As are a long list of ailments, which used to be rare, and have now been mainstreamed. Things like asthma, autism, acid reflux, arthritis, allergies, adult acne, ADD. And that's just the A's. Doesn't anybody wonder why we live with all this illness? ...There are ads that love to say 'When diet and exercise fail...' Well, diet and exercise don't fail. A fact brought home last week by a new Duke University study that showed  that exercise, yes, exercise, is just as effective a cure for depression as Paxil and Zoloft. So ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you."

-BILL MAHER, comedian 

Coming soon to an airport near you

The Transportation Security Administration is officially launching a plan to install 1,000 full-body scanners at U.S. airports over the next two years. Airports in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago are among the 11 slated to get the devices in the near future.

No privacy issues here. 

Potential damage to DNA (increasing cancer risk) is a small price to pay for safety, right? And nevermind that British government studies have shown that these scanners can't detect lightweight items like plastics, chemicals or liquids.

Spider goats and Fluorescent cats

Oh the tangled web we weave...

Nexia, a Canadian company, has genetically modified goats to be part spider. Why? So that the goats will make spider silk protein in their milk, which is then purified and spun into fibers reportedly stronger than steel. The fibers are said to have important industrial and military uses, but are difficult to produce in large quantities. Apparently, farming spiders is too difficult because of their territorial and cannibalistic nature. So of course, the natural solution is to create spider goats.

And don't forget glowing cats. In 2007, South Korean scientists cloned cats that glow in the dark. 

                                Mr. Green Genes, the first fluorescent cat in the U.S. 

Up next? Pigs with human genes in them. They will be grown to produce transplant organs for humans. Oh, and there's always a chance these pig-human hybrids may end up in our food supply as well. We'll never know. No big deal, right?

Why are we drinking this?

ANNA / Empowered Citizens Blog

Fluoride is an active ingredient in and rat poison (it's registered with the EPA as such), sarin nerve gas, some pesticides, anesthetics, tranquilizers, toothpaste and mind-altering drugs such as Prozac. It's also in the water supply of almost every community in the U.S. (Click here to find out if the water in your area is fluoridated)

So what is fluoride? For years, fluoride was classified as a toxic waste, its only approved uses being as an insecticide and rat poison. The fluoride used in our water supply is a toxic byproduct of the aluminum industry. This waste is not pure sodium fluoride. It contains additional toxic impurities such as lead and arsenic.

But don't get your tinfoil hats out just yet. The dangers of fluoride are not merely the fantasy of conspiracy theorists. They are, in fact, well documented.

Studies* have been conducted on fluoride, and it has been found to be linked to bone decay, cancer, alzheimer's, thyroid disfunction, weakened immune system.

The American Dental Association is now advising parents (as of 2006) not to give their infants fluoridated tap water because among other things, it can cause--wait for it--brain damage. This is according to a review published in the medical journal The Lancet.**

Fluoride has been pushed as an excellent way to prevent tooth decay, even though five studies*** published since the year 2000 have reported no increase in tooth decay in once fluoridated communities that have since ceased the practice. Tooth decay is caused by our poor diet and malnutrition, not by a lack of fluoride.

Many countries have banned water fluoridation, including China, Sweden, Norway and Japan. Others nations that once fluoridated their water have since stopped the practice. Those countries include Germany, Finland and Hungary. 

Here are some video clips on the matter:

And for good humor:

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* Some such studies:
- National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p. 173-188.
- Varner JA, et al. (1998). Chronic Administration of Aluminum-Fluoride and Sodium-Fluoride to Rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in Neuronal and Cerebrovascular Integrity.Brain Research. 784: 284-298.
- Lin Fa-Fu, et al. (1991). The relationship of a low-iodine and high-fluoride environment to subclinical cretinism in Xinjiang. Iodine Deficiency Disorder Newsletter. Vol. 7. No. 3.
- Xiang Q, et al. (2003a). Effect of fluoride in drinking water on children's intelligence. Fluoride 36: 84-94; 198-199.
- NRC (2006). p. 189-224.
- NRC (2006). p. 107-148.
- National Toxicology Program. (1990). Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of Sodium Fluoride in F344/N Rats and B6C3f1 Mice. Technical report Series No. 393. NIH Publ. No 91-2848. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, N.C.
- Hoover RN, et al. (1991). Time trends for bone and joint cancers and osteosarcomas in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program. National Cancer Institute In: Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks. US Public Health Service. Appendix E & F.
- Cohn PD. (1992). A Brief Report On The Association Of Drinking Water Fluoridation And The Incidence of Osteosarcoma Among Young Males. New Jersey Department of Health Environ. Health Service: 1- 17.
- Bassin EB, Wypij D, Davis RB, Mittleman MA. (2006). Age-specific Fluoride Exposure in Drinking Water and Osteosarcoma (United States). Cancer Causes and Control 17: 421-8.
- Johnson W, et al. (1979). Fluoridation and bone disease in renal patients. In: E Johansen, DR Taves, TO Olsen, Eds. Continuing Evaluation of the Use of Fluorides. AAAS Selected Symposium. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. pp. 275-293.
- Ittel TH, et al. (1992). Effect of fluoride on aluminum-induced bone disease in rats with renal failure. Kidney International 41: 1340-1348.
- Ayoob S, Gupta AK. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review on the Status and Stress Effects. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology 36:433–487
** The review was called "Developmental neurotoxicity of industrial chemicals" and was published Nov. 8, 2006.
*** The five studies are:
- Kunzel W, Fischer T. (2000). Caries prevalence after cessation of water fluoridation in La Salud, Cuba. Caries Research 34: 20-5.
- Kunzel W, Fischer T, Lorenz R, Bruhmann S. (2000). Decline of caries prevalence after the cessation of water fluoridation in the former East Germany. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 28: 382-9.
- Seppa L, Karkkainen S, Hausen H. (2000). Caries Trends 1992-1998 in Two Low-Fluoride Finnish Towns Formerly with and without Fluoridation. Caries Research 34: 462-468.

- Burt BA, et al. (2000). The effects of a break in water fluoridation on the development of dental caries and fluorosis. J Dent Res. 79(2):761-9.

-Maupome G, Clark DC, Levy SM, Berkowitz J. (2001). Patterns of dental caries following the cessation of water fluoridation. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 29: 37-47.