Men, Get Yourself Some Help!

Yes, I’m talking to you men… You were the inspiration for this site because half of you refuse to get yourself mental or physical help…so you can talk to me using your favourite gadget in relative anonymity, ask even ‘dumb’ questions and be a ‘weakling’ if you feel like it; your mother is not the only one who can handle that side of you….OK? Good, your number of excuses is dwindling…strike off ‘no fun’, ‘I don’t want to show my face’, ‘I’ll look like an idiot’, ‘I’ll feel like a sissy’… 

Yes, I know money is always a factor, but enough of you pulled me over at parties, bars and garages and emptied my brain for me to take a hint…because money was not some of ‘you’s’ issue..maybe you just didn’t want to go to any doctor’s office…

 

 

Your Sexual Orientation – ‘Finding Your North’

Yes, about your sexual orientation…quit killing-up yourself over it…YOU ARE NORMAL…just ‘minority normal’…or in scientific terms ‘a standard deviation’…and ‘deviation’ here has nothing to do with depravity; it’s a scientific term that means you don’t fit under the bell of the bell curve, i.e., you are the ‘outliers’ of what is NORMAL! You are to the heterosexual population what left-handers are to right-handers…91% right-handers, 9% left-handers. We now know they’re not aberrants and not to try and change them over…they’re a normal ‘variation on a theme’…for you musicians…(and did you ever notice that among left-handers & homosexuals there is a disproportionately high number of geniuses?) Unfortunately, approach to sexuality is the reverse. Being homosexual was never a big deal until the mid 1800’s.  In fact, lesbian cohabitation was called a ‘Boston Marriage’ in this city in the US at around this date.  Nobody was trying to change over anybody. Then something happened around the time of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment and nothing has been the same since. Great shame, really…

Now we have EVERYBODY flaunting sexuality like it’s some forbidden fruit given us by aliens. Just find some place on the planet where you’re comfortable with yourself and live your life however it makes you happy without hurting yourself or others. Did you read that last sentence?  Good…just as with heterosexuals…you are not allowed to go converting fence-sitters or those who have yet to find ‘their north’ OR involving minors in your affairs in today’s day and age. Yes, yes, I know…up to the 1600’s they weren’t minors; menses meant adulthood…not so today…so accept this fact. The mind is taking longer to mature because there is simply way more stuff that it has to process on the road to adulthood! Furthermore, hetero-, homo- or crossexual; unless you are aberrant; you cannot possibly need more than 3 lovers! It was the rare cave man that had more…and (s)he was Mankind in its most natural state. AND I DON’T GIVE 2 FARTHINGS WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY… USE A CONDOM!!! JUST AS THE YOUNG ARE NO LONGER SOCIALLY VIABLE AS ADULTS AT THE ONSET OF MENSES AND VOICE CHANGE; YOU CANNOT GO AROUND WITHOUT A CONDOM…END OF STORY…DON’T ARGUE WITH ME!!

At any one time, fully 5% to 10% of the world’s population is homosexual (don’t ask me where my old psych. prof. got this stat.) and then there is another bunch of ‘facultatives’ (like a right-hander who has to learn to use his left-hand if the right doesn’t function…he’s still a righty by birth). These people move ‘back and forth’ … the relationship can override the sexuality.  Sexuality is actually a continuum of orientation…anywhere from heteros who have homo fantasies to homos with hetero fantasies and everything in between, further clouded by hormonal and genetic issues including brains that don’t match bodies, frank hermaphrodites…etc. Look here, nature is NORMALLY full of variation, there are exceptions to every rule…THIS IS LIFE! So for God’s sake don’t sweat what you THINK you are…find someone to talk to who can help you find your little place in the sun that doesn’t harm you or others. True, harder in some places than others…

Update 24/9/18

I never knew how right I was!!!  They taught us rubbish in med school about human sexuality!   It really is a continuum to the point where some populations make room for homosexual/heterosexual shift as a normal right of passage.  Once we start boxing and pigeonholing that’s when the extremism comes out.   I’ve learned more about this in dealing with HIV clients that anywhere else and unless the world’s public health systems start taking into account the true nature of sexual variation we will contine to ‘dig horrors’ with HIV.  Imagine the facilitator of a  Health e Foundation seminar cutting off an HIV seminar guest who was asked to explain the medics how he viewed his own fluid sexuality “because it wasn’t the time/place/ point of the seminar’!!!!… It’s late people and the night gets darker …. wake up!  Fluid sexuality is not about depravity… it’s about finding ‘your true north’…where your soul is at rest.

Vaccines: time to start asking questions

We have no wish to throw out the baby with the bath water but…..

They Want to Ban Our Times Square Billboard Message Posted By Dr. Mercola | May 06 2011http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/05/06/doctors-denying-vaccine-risks-an-american-tragedy.aspx

It is a short 15 second public service message on the CBS Jumbotron on Times Square in New York City that encourages everyone to make informed vaccine choices. The message is sponsored by the nonprofit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center, and made possible by a donation from Mercola.com. It has been shown hourly since March 22, 2011 alongside much bigger ads for a variety of products marketed by large corporations.

AAP Strong Arms CBS

On April 13, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sent a letter to CBS containing misinformation about NVIC in an attempt to strong arm the network into taking the vaccine education message down before it was scheduled to end on April 28. The AAP letter was provided to bloggers,2 , 3 who orchestrated an online smear campaign against NVIC and created a petition drive to increase pressure on CBS. Mainstream media outlets like The Guardian in Great Britain republished the AAP’s attack and added more disinformation.4

AAP: Follow the Money
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is a trade association with 60,000 pediatrician members that publishes guidelines for giving vaccines to children. In recent years, the public has learned that the AAP has been taking lots of money from vaccine manufacturers and refusing to disclose to the media just how much money it gets from Big Pharma.5

In the early 1980’s, the AAP lobbied Congress to give pediatricians and drug companies liability protection from vaccine injury lawsuits while parents of DPT vaccine injured children worked hard to get vaccine safety and informed consent provisions in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986,6 which has already paid out more than 2 billion dollars in federal compensation to children and adults harmed by vaccines.7 Today, when a pediatrician continues to vaccinate a child after the child has experienced vaccine reactions that get worse after each round of shots, that pediatrician is not held liable in a civil court of law when the child ends up brain damaged or dead because of the pediatrician’s negligence.

AAP: Censoring Vaccine Information
This, together with the fact that in February 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court gave drug companies a bigger shield8 from vaccine injury lawsuits – even if the company could have made a safer vaccine – means that the only power Americans have left to protect ourselves from vaccine injury is to arm ourselves with information and defend the legal right to make vaccine choices.9 But, clearly, that is getting harder to do when doctors and organizations paid by the pharmaceutical industry are trying to censor vaccine information and block all public conversation about vaccination, while lobbying to take away the human right to informed consent to medical risking taking.10 , 11 , 12 , 13

Dr. Paul Offit: Follow the Money
One of those doctors paid a lot of money by Big Pharma is Dr. Paul Offit.14 He creates new vaccines and has made a career out of denying vaccine risks and defaming people,15 , 16 , 17 , 18 who disagree with his unscientific opinions like his cavalier insistence that it would be safe to give a child 10,000 vaccines at once.19 He delights in spreading misinformation about parents of vaccine injured children,20 doctors helping those children,21 and journalists trying to cover both sides of the vaccine safety debate.

Offit spent a large part of his new book demonizing me and NVIC with the half witted, zealous obsession of a stalker.22 Just this week, a newspaper in Orange County, CA published a retraction23 for printing Offit’s defamatory accusation that veteran CBS journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, lied when she accurately reported in 2008 that Offit failed to inform CBS about exactly how much money he and his employer, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, are paid by Merck. Merck is the manufacturer and marketer of Vioxx and a whole slew of vaccines, including Offit’s rotavirus vaccine and Gardasil, hepatitis B, chicken pox, shingles and MMR vaccines.24

Doctors Demanding We Must Trust
Why should we care about influential doctors, who take big money from Big Pharma, and then spend a lot of their time viciously attacking anyone daring to suggest that vaccines and vaccine policies could be made safer?

We should care because doctors don’t just ask but, increasingly, demand that we trust them with our health and the health of our children. Many pediatricians, who are now giving children six dozen doses of 16 vaccines starting on the day of birth,25 throw parents out of their office if they dare to ask too many questions about vaccination or ask for fewer vaccines to be given at once.26 , 27 , 28 While the AAP is promoting the idea that every child must live in a “family-centered medical home” so pediatricians can “oversee” children’s health,29 including giving children three times as many vaccinations as children got three decades ago, there are hundreds of new vaccines in the research pipeline.30 , 31

New Vaccines, New Mandates, Big Profits
How many of these hundreds of new vaccines will be fast tracked by the FDA32 , 33 and mandated for children as soon as they are licensed?34 Probably most of them, because that is how drug companies with no liability make big profits – by making sure that every vaccine they make and sell is legally required to be used by every child. And adults are not exempt from the vaccine mandate creep either, just ask American health care workers, who are being fired if they don’t get an annual flu shot,35 as well as lots of other vaccines.

Doctors Should Partner With Parents to Prevent Vaccine Reactions
But what about the children, for whom the risks of vaccination are 100 percent? What about them? Aren’t their lives worth saving, too?

Shouldn’t organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics be doing everything they can to teach their members about how to be partners with parents in preventing vaccine reactions instead of throwing families out of their offices and attacking organizations like NVIC representing families, whose loved ones have suffered life-altering vaccine reactions?

Thirty years ago, when I took my healthy, precocious two and a half year old son into his pediatrician for his fourth DPT shot, I was told nothing about how to recognize a vaccine reaction. He had experienced an extremely severe local reaction after his third DPT shot but I did not understand the significance of that and neither did my pediatrician. So another DPT shot was given and I watched my child suffer a convulsion, collapse, and experience many hours of unconsciousness shortly after his vaccination and did not realize he was experiencing a brain inflammation that would change his life and mine forever.

Brain Inflammation: From Infections and Vaccines
Brain inflammation36 is one of the most feared complications of vaccination and has been since the first vaccines – smallpox and rabies vaccines – were created and given to humans. 37 , 38 Doctors have known for more than a century that brain inflammation,39 whether it is caused by an infection or a vaccination,40 , 41 , 42 can cause different kinds of permanent brain dysfunction that ranges from multiple learning disabilities to medication resistant seizure disorders, mental retardation43 and, yes, sometimes can result in a constellation of brain dysfunction symptoms that are labeled by doctors as “autism.” 44 , 45

In the book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark, published a quarter century ago, there are many case histories of children, whose pediatricians did not tell mothers about how to recognize the symptoms of vaccine reactions and those children were revaccinated over and over again until they were permanently brain damaged or died.46 A number of these children came from families with strong medical histories of allergy and autoimmunity, like my family,47 which the pediatricians dismissed as unimportant.

Writing Off Vaccine Reaction Symptoms Is Dangerous
Too often doctors today – just like doctors back in the 1980’s – are not telling parents about what to look for after vaccines are given. Too many pediatricians today are listening to the advice of Paul Offit48 , 49 and, instead of adhering to the precautionary principle, are dangerously writing off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” without having a clue about whether that is true for an individual child.

At the National Vaccine Information Center, where we have been collecting information on vaccine reactions since 1982, it is clear to us that more than 50 percent of all vaccine injuries and deaths could potentially be prevented if doctors and parents were educated about what a vaccine reaction looks like and if pediatricians were much more cautious about re-vaccinating children when a child gets sicker and sicker after each round of shots.50, 51 , 52

Learn How to Make Informed Vaccine Choices
Because your pediatrician may not tell you how to recognize a symptom of a vaccine reaction, you can download the brochure “If You Vaccinate, Ask 8 Questions” from NVIC’s website. It contains a list of vaccine reactions to look for like high pitched screaming and collapse/shock and seizures.53 At NVIC’s website, you can also access vaccine product information published by the vaccine manufacturers and the FDA, as well as do your own research about vaccine reactions reported to the federal government.54 You can access a Vaccine Ingredient Calculator that educates you about vaccine components and how to make informed vaccine choices.55
And remember, if your child suffers symptoms of marked deterioration in physical, mental or emotional health after vaccination, you need to make sure your pediatrician writes down those symptoms in the child’s permanent medical record.

One Size Does Not Fit All
America’s children would be better served if the American Academy of Pediatrics leadership educated its membership about how to be intelligent, compassionate partners with parents in preventing vaccine reactions, injuries and deaths rather than write off symptoms of vaccine reactions as a “coincidence” and bully parents into submitting to one-size-fits-all vaccine policies that are not safe for every single child. People are not all the same and we do not all react the same way to pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.56 Some children are genetically and biologically at higher risk for suffering life-altering vaccine reactions.57
Pretending that is not true is both intellectually dishonest and cruel. No child is expendable and no pediatrician should be encouraged to be a zealous implementer of state vaccine policy first instead of, first, doing no harm.

Click here to read NVIC’s April 25, 2011 Businesswire press release.

Click here to read the April 18, 2011 Letter from Barbara Loe Fisher, President, National Vaccine Information Center, to O. Marion Burton, MD, FAAP, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Click here to read the April 18, 2011 Letter from Barbara Loe Fisher, President, NVIC, to Leslie Moonves, President, CBS.

References:

——————————————————————————–

1 NVIC. NVIC & Mercola.com on Times Square. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter March 23, 2011.
2 Autism News Beat (an anonymous blogger). AAP asks CBS to pull anti-vaccine ad. April 13, 2011.
3 The Skeptical Teacher (aka anonymous blogger mattusmaximus). ALERT: Demand That CBS Not Air Outdoor Anti-Vaccine Ad! April 15, 2011.
4 Platt, M. Doctors demand the removal of anti-vaccine ad from Times Square. The Guardian (UK). April 18, 2011.
5 Lagorio C. How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders? CBS News. July 25, 2008.
6 NVIC. Federal Law – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
7 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: Statistics Report (as of April 4, 2011).
8 Supreme Court of the United States. Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al. No. 09-152. Argued October 12, 2010 – Decided February 22, 2011.
9 Fisher BL. No Pharma Liability? No Vaccine Mandates. March 2, 2011.
10 AAP. State Government Affairs: State Legislation Report 2010. Childhood Immunization Challenges.
11 Friedman M. NJ Senate Bill would establish stricter rules on vaccination exemptions citing religious reasons. Star Ledger. March 15, 2011.
12 Fisher BL. Vaccines and Individual Rights. Wall Street Journal. January 27, 2007.
13 Fisher, BL. WA & NJ Families Stand Up for Vaccine Choices. NVIC Vaccine E-newsletter. March 23, 2011.
14 Fagone, J. Will This Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine. March 27, 2009.
15 Handley JB. Columbia University Press and Dr. Paul Offit Sued for Autism’s False Prophets. Age of Autism. February 10, 2009.
16 . Wallace A. An Epidemic of Fear: One Man’s Battle Against the Anti-VaccineMovement. Wired. November 2009.
17 Barbara Loe Arthur (aka Barbara Loe Fisher), Plaintiff v. Paul A. Offit, M.D. et al, Defendants. Civil Action No. 01:09-cv-1398. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Plaintiff’s Opposition to Motion to Dismiss filed Feb. 3, 2010 on behalf of plaintiff by Jonathan W. Emord with Andrea G. Ferrenz, Peter A. Arhangelsky, Christopher K. Niederhauser of Emord & Associates, Counsel for Plaintiff.
18 Orange County Register. CORRECTION re: August 4, 2008 article “Dr. Paul Offit Responds.” April 18, 2011.
19 Kalb, C. Stomping Through a Medical Minefield. Newsweek Magazine. October 25, 2008.
20 Poling J. Letter re: Vaccines and Autism Revisited – The Hannah Poling Case. NEnglJMed 2008; 359:655-565. Aust 7, 2008.
21 Offit PA, Moser CA. The Problem with Dr. Bob’s Alternate Vaccine Schedule. Pediatrics 2009; 123: e164-e169.
22 Offit P. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Basic Books: 2011.
23 See Reference #18.
24 MerckVaccines.com
25 AAP. 2011 Immunization Schedules.
26 Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.NVIC.
27 Kotz D. Flexible Approach to Vaccination Comes Under Fire.U.S. News. December 29, 2008.
28 Flanaga-Klygis EA, Sharp E. Frader JE. Dismissing the Family Who Refuses Vaccines: A Study of Pediatrician Attitudes.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005; 159: 929-934.
29 AAP.Medical Home (National Center for Medical Home Implementation).
30 U.S. National Institutes of Health.Vaccine Clinical Trials.
31 Associated Press. Vaccines market gives pharmaceutical industry a boost. NJ.com. November 17, 2009.
32 NVIC. Merck’s Gardasil Vaccine Not Proven Safe for Little Girls. NVIC Press Release: June 27, 2006.
33 Computer Sciences Corporation. Case Studies: Regulatory Affairs. Fast Tracking Vaccine Program.
34 Zimm A, Preston D. Merck Gets First U.S. Cancer Shot Mandate, From Texas (Update 3). Bloomberg News. February 20, 2007.
35 Fisher BL. Forcing Flu Shots on Healthcare Workers: Who Is Next? NVIC. September 10, 2010.
36 Merck Manual. Definition of Encephalitis (brain inflammation).
37 Altman LK. Smallpox Vaccine Transmission Raises Liability Issue. New York Times. December 16, 2002.
38 The Rockefeller University. The Birth of the Concept of Autoimmune Demyelinating Disease and Creation of An Animal Model to Test New Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis. The Rockefeller University Hospital.
39 News-Medical.Net. Brain inflammation is a sign of autism. Nov. 15, 2004.
40 Gold, R. Pertussis: The Disease & the Vaccine. Canadian Family Physician. Vol 32, January 1986, pp. 79-83.
41 Steinman L, Weiss A et al. Pertussis toxin is required for pertussis vaccine encephalopathy. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 1985. December; 82(24) 8733-8736.
42 Hofstetter HH, Shive CL, Forsthuber TC. Pertussis Toxin Modulates the Immune Response to Neuroantigens Injected in Incomplete Freund’s Adjuvant: Induction of Th1 Cells and Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis in the Presence of High Frequencies of Th2 Cells. The Journal of Immunology, 2002. 169: 117-125.
43 Stratton KR, Howe CJ, Johnston RB. DPT Vaccine and Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction: A New Analysis. Institute of Medicine: National Academy Press. 1994.

44 Ashwood P, Wills S, VandeWater J. The immune response in autism: a new frontier for autism research. Journal of Leukocyte Biology 2006; 80: 1-15.
45 Fisher BL. Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. NVIC. 2008.
46 Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985.
47 Fisher BL. Medical Science & Public Trust: The policy, ethics and law of vaccination in the 20th & 21st centuries. Presentation at the Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science Conference. January 3, 2011.
48 The Colbert Report. Interview with Paul Offit. February 1, 2011.
49 Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. Interview with Paul Offit. January 31, 2011.
50 International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. Hepatitis B Vaccine Reaction Report. NVIC.
51 Epilepsy.com. Online discussion about seizures after immunizations. April 2005.
52 NVIC. Gardasil & The Damage Done: Gabrielle’s Gardasil Vaccine Reaction. December 2008.
53 NVIC. If You Vaccinate, Ask 8!
54 MedAlerts Vaccine Reaction Database.
55 Vaccine Ingredients Calculator.
56 National Center for Biotechnology Information. One Size Does Not Fit All.
57 PBS NewsHour. Autism Now. Six-Part Series (On Air April 18-25 and online)
Sources:
National Vaccine Information Center April 21, 2011

BusinessWire April 25, 2011

Salon.com April 25, 2011

American Council on Science & Health April 14, 2011

The Guardian April 18, 2011

Jamaica Therapy: Feelgood Getaways

Getting away from it all and ‘out of yourself’ can be a huge step in cleaning up your brain circuitry…

Rain Forest Therapy in Our Beautiful Jamaica: 

One place near the sea, one near a river…one you can stay at, one is a day trip/trip everyday…one in the northeast of Jamaica, one in the northwest of Jamaica; both are owned by vegitarians.

Pet Therapy in Our Beautiful Jamaica:

Want to get away from it all with animals and people who revere them?  Well try these places/people:

A lovely old world stable where you don’t have to be a king to enjoy the Sport of Kings, from polo lessons to just being led around by an expert.  The kids are taught the dignity and grace of the sport without snobbery and for kids with challenges such as autism, being led around on, or learning to care for, a kind and friendly animal on a regular basis seems to work wonders and is scientifically proven to do so.  In the northwest of Jamaica.

OR

A funky, loving way to rehabilitate our stray dogs.  Voila!… Working dogs  take you for a ride  in the middle of the tropics…it’s outside the box fun on Jamaica’s north coast.

OR

A lady and her team so dedicated to helping Jamaica manage its strays that she’s connected with a full-fledged visiting team of spayers and they can use your volunteer help in northwest Jamaica.

Alternative Spirituality in Our Beautiful Jamaica:

Whether you are Jewish or not…would you like to experience the Judaic way by the sea?  Jewish feasts are celebrated, but so is Jamaica’s Afro-Caribbean culture.  Nice mix.  I was reminded that Judaism and Africa crossed paths centuries ago in Ethiopia.  In northeast Jamaica.  Maybe you can even volunteer to help the owner with his street/drug people charity.

Natural Spa Therapy in Our Beautiful Jamaica:

There are at least 4 I know of, 3 on the south coast and one on the north.  Our claim to fame, compared to the rest of the world, is supposed to be the extraordinary variety of minerals in our ground water and its penetrative ability.  Our spas range from REALLY rustic to near elegantly informal and most have very interesting very histories.

By the way…

Are you having trouble understanding Jamaicans and their speech?  Well, a light way to break yourself in might be to read ‘Shub Down & Small-up Yuself’ by me.  See our Face Page.

Food Labelling


Crafty Food Labeling Tricks the Industry Hopes You NEVER Learn… Posted By Dr. Mercola | April 20 2011

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/04/20/how-to-read-and-understand-food-labels.aspx

What’s the first thing you need to know about reading food labels? Too often, people with the best of intentions don’t realize that unless you read the entire label, you’re not going to get a true idea of the food’s ingredients. Even then, you have to know how to interpret what the label says to be absolutely certain that you’re getting what you want.

“When it comes to processed foods, if it says it’s natural, ignore the claim,” says Organic Lifestyle Magazine. “It means nothing. If it says it’s organic, it doesn’t have to be 100 percent organic unless it says it is. Remember processed foods can be labeled organic if only 80 percent of the ingredients are organic. And organic junk food is still junk food.”

The best advice is to simply not eat any processed foods at all. But if you must, a short list of ingredients and phrases to avoid includes artificial colors, artificial flavorings, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, sodium nitrates or nitrites, and others.
Sources:
  Organic Lifestyle Magazine January/February 2011

  Huffington Post March 21, 2011

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:    
Organic Lifestyle Magazine is right—if you see the word “natural,” you can count on it meaning absolutely nothing. If you’re a label reader, you may have wondered, how organic is “organic”?

How local is “local”? 

Maybe you didn’t read the ingredient list on your “natural” product until you got home, only to notice some very UN-natural looking ingredients listed there, and wondered how there could be such an enormous difference between the front of the bag and the back.

As it turns out, most of what’s on the label is marketing hype and splashy design work, made only to seduce you into believing the product is good for you. And as you’ll see, you have to be very market-savvy to find the truth, because labels have fooled even the smartest shoppers.

It’s easy to be duped, if you don’t know what to look for.

How Many People Actually READ Food Labels?
Have you ever wondered how many people actually select their food based on what the label says?

In 2006, a survey was taken on more than 1,000 adults. The results might surprise you:

•80 percent of Americans read labels for things like calories, fat, sugar, and salt, but 44 percent buy food products, regardless of what the label says
•65 percent of women read labels, compared to 51 percent of men
•39 percent of young people (ages 18 to 29) said they look at calories on food labels, but 60 percent of them buy them, regardless of the label

There is obviously quite a bit of denial operating in the collective American psyche!
What the FDA Does and Doesn’t Do

You might be surprised to learn that the FDA does not require foods to be laboratory tested for nutritional content. While the FDA does check food labels, they only check to see whether or not the Nutrition Facts panel is present—not whether or not it’s accurate.

The labeling law allows food companies to simply estimate average values for fat, protein, carbohydrates, sugar, etc., for any given product, based on a standard list of ingredients.

So, how accurate do they have to be to avoid violating labeling laws?

The FDA says a 20 percent margin of error is acceptable. Even getting 20 percent more fat or sugar than you want will really add up over time.  But the truth is, it’s much worse than that.
EXPECT Labels to Lie!

The FDA estimates that roughly ten percent of food product labels contain inaccuracies.

Ten percent?

Really?

When actually analyzed by a laboratory, most grocery and restaurant foods are MUCH higher than advertised in fats, carbohydrates, sugars and sodium.

According to an article in Spinwatch, food testers analyzed 570 nutrients listed on 70 products. Only 7 percent matched what the label said—levels of fat, salt, calories and carbs were inaccurate in 93 percent of products tested.

The results were surprising:

•One biscuit was found to have three times the amount of saturated fat claimed on the label
•One type of pizza was found to have 80 percent more fat
•Cadbury’s Light Truffles were found to have 23 percent more fat than was claimed on the label

A 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that about 24 percent of food labels were inaccurate. Also in 2008, Good Morning America hired a lab to test a dozen packaged food products to see if the nutrients matched the labels, and all 12 products exceeded what was claimed on the label, in one way or another (primarily fat, sugar and sodium).

Manufacturers get away with this because punishment for violations is a joke.

For a first offense, information about the food is entered into a database, but the product is still allowed on store shelves. If a second violation is detected within 60 days, then the product may be suspended. But here’s the catch: since food testing is very infrequent, it is highly unlikely that a second offense will be caught within their 60-day time frame.

This effectively allows food manufacturers to do whatever they want and slant their claims however they wish, based on the demographic they want to manipulate.

The marketing of children’s foods is a perfect example.

Prevention Institute investigated package labeling for children’s foods in 2010. They found 84 percent of products advertised as “healthiest picks for kids” did not meet even basic nutritional standards.

And the next time you see “”zero trans fats” on a label, don’t believe it. Manufacturers are allowed to use that phrase as long as the product contains less than 0.5 grams per serving. Look at the ingredient list and see if it contains some hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.
The Official USDA Organic Seal

There are a few buzzwords to watch out for on the front of the box that say absolutely nothing about the true nutritional value of what’s inside. Here are a few common marketing ploys:

•”All natural ingredients,” or “100 percent natural”
•”No artificial preservatives” (do they mean all they use only real preservatives?)
•”Real fruit” (just because the package shows a picture of an apple doesn’t mean the apple has to be in there)
Statements like those are unregulated and are designed to appeal to the gullible health-conscious, but do not reflect nutritional content. Marketers hope you’re uninformed enough to accept those statements at face value—hoping you’ll just grab the bag and go.

Even phrases like “all organic” have little meaning without the official USDA Organic seal, which is your best assurance of quality.

Growers and manufacturers of organic products bearing the USDA seal have to meet the strictest standards of any of the currently available organic labels, in terms of being free of antibiotics and growth hormones, pesticides, heavy metals, preservatives, chemicals, irradiation, etc.

That said, even the USDA Organic seal has been greatly compromised over the past several years.
The Rapid Decay of the Organic Label

Organic food now represents a $16-billion business, with sales growing by as much as 20 percent per year. Unfortunately, the quality and meaning of the organic label is undergoing an equally fast decline.

Organic foods were once truly raised naturally, on small farms with great integrity. But with the skyrocketing popularity of the organic food industry, big business has now stepped in and tainted many of the principles upon which the organic label was founded.

Wal-Mart, for instance, is now the largest organic retailer in the United States. According to the Organic Consumers Association, the mega-store is:

•Selling organic milk that comes from intensive confinement factory farm dairies
•Importing cheap organic foods and ingredients from China and Brazil
•Posting signs in its stores that mislead people into believing that non-organic items are actually organic
The sad fact is, you are being ripped off by much of the organic food you are buying.

For example, consider all of those “organic” junk foods like ice cream, crackers, cookies, pizzas and potato chips. A potato chip is one of the worst foods you can eat, regardless of whether or not the potato is organic.

Yet big business is cashing in on your desire to “have your cake and eat it too” by trying to make you believe you can eat cake, cookies, ice cream and potato chips without feeling guilty—because they’re “organic.”

The same deception is beginning to happen with the word “local.” How local is local?

Is it grown within your:

·         City?

·         State?

·         Country?

“Local” is yet another unregulated term that clever marketers are using to increase sales. Without visiting the farm, it’s hard to know what “local” really is.

Some states actually regulate geographic claims, but many do not. For example, in Vermont, a product labeled as “local” must originate within 30 miles of where it is sold. And in California, farmers selling produce through California Farmers’ Markets must grow the produce within the state of California, which could be 5 miles away or 400.

And realize that neither “organic” nor “local” reveals anything about the size, sustainability, or humaneness of the farm.

Additives that Should be Subtracted
In 1958, Congressman James Delaney of New York authored an amendment to the Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1938 called the Delaney Clause, stating:

“…The Secretary of the Food and Drug Administration shall not approve for use in food any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man, or, after tests, found to induce cancer in animals.”

One of the problems is, additives that were “GRAS” (generally regarded as safe) prior to this amendment were “grandfathered in”—and some of them are now known to be carcinogenic.

The following are a few examples of food additives to watch out for in your ingredient list:

•MSG—a flavor enhancer; this agent is a potent neurotoxin that can cause anything from migraines to Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease; hidden in a multitude of other ingredients, including autolyzed yeast, glutamate, textured protein, gelatin, natural flavors, barley malt and soy sauce, to name a few.
•Sodium nitrite and nitrate—preservatives added to processed meats that are carcinogenic.
•BHA and BHT—preservatives added to processed foods, also linked to cancer.
•Potassium bromate—added to many white flours and baked goods, this endocrine disruptor damages your thyroid and can cause psychiatric and cardiac problems; most countries have banned it, except for the U.S. and Japan.
•Common food dyes—such as Citrus Red No. 2, which is used to dye your oranges orange… unless you buy organic oranges. Like most FD&C dyes, this dye is derived from coal tar, which is a human carcinogen. If you zest a non-organic orange, you may be consuming this dye.
A Quick Word on GMO Labeling

Until we succeed in getting a labeling law for all genetically modified foods, the only way to be somewhat assured a food is non-GMO is if it is labeled specifically as such, or if it holds the official USDA organic seal.

And even this is no longer a certainty due to widespread seed contamination. For example, your chance of acquiring a genetically modified Hawaiian papaya is 50/50—even if you’re buying one that’s certified organic.

The idea that you can identify GM produce by its PLU code is a myth, which Jeffrey Smith fully dispels in his 2010 Huffington Post article.  You can download his Non-GMO Shopping Guide from the Institute for Responsible Technology for more GMO information.The BEST Solution

There are no easy answers when it comes to deciphering food labels, but there are simple strategies that can help ensure you know exactly what you’re eating, such as:

•Avoiding packaged or processed foods
•Selecting whole foods
•Shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store
•Preparing your food at home
It really comes down to a change in mindset—choosing to eat “real” food that has been minimally processed and tampered with—like fresh produce, organic meat and eggs.

Even better, choose food that is humanely and sustainably raised/produced near you. Shop at your local farmers market or co-op; get to know your farmers personally.

Here are a few resources for finding wholesome food that supports you, as well as the environment:

•Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals: The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
•Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA): CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.
•FoodRoutes: The FoodRoutes “Find Good Food” map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA’s, and markets near you.
•Local Harvest: Another good database for finding the best fresh, organic food grown near you.

If you’re unsure of how to start, I suggest you read my book Take Control of Your Health for a comprehensive nutrition program based on natural, whole foods. You can also check out my free online nutrition plan, which provides step-by-step suggestions about how begin your nutritional transformation.

Cell Phone Dangers

GQ Magazine

Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health

http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-gadgets/201002/warning-cell-phone-radiation

Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it’s not pretty. So why isn’t anyone in America doing anything about it?

By Christopher Ketcham

Photograph by Tom Schierlitz

February 2010

Earlier this winter, I met an investment banker who was diagnosed with a brain tumor five years ago. He’s a managing director at a top Wall Street firm, and I was put in touch with him through a colleague who knew I was writing a story about the potential dangers of cell-phone radiation. He agreed to talk with me only if his name wasn’t used, so I’ll call him Jim. He explained that the tumor was located just behind his right ear and was not immediately fatal—the five-year survival rate is about 70 percent. He was 35 years old at the time of his diagnosis and immediately suspected it was the result of his intense cell-phone usage. “Not for nothing,” he said, “but in investment

banking we’ve been using cell phones since 1992, back when they were the Gordon-Gekko-on-the-beach kind of phone.” When Jim asked his neurosurgeon, who was on the staff of a major medical center in Manhattan, about the possibility of a cell-phone-induced tumor, the doctor responded that in fact he was seeing more and more of such cases—young, relatively healthy businessmen who had long used their phones obsessively. He said he believed the industry had discredited studies showing there is a risk from cell phones. “I got a sense that he was pissed off,” Jim told me. A handful of Jim’s colleagues had already died from brain cancer; the more reports he encountered of young finance guys developing tumors, the more certain he felt that it wasn’t a coincidence. “I knew four or five people just at my firm who got tumors,” Jim says. “Each time, people ask the question. I hear it in the hallways.”

It’s hard to talk about the dangers of cell-phone radiation without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. This is especially true in the United States, where non-industry-funded studies are rare, where legislation protecting the wireless industry from legal challenges has long been in place, and where our lives have been so thoroughly integrated with wireless technology that to suggest it might be a problem—maybe, eventually, a very big public-health problem—is like saying our shoes might be killing us.

Except our shoes don’t send microwaves directly into our brains. And cell phones do—a fact that has increasingly alarmed the rest of the world. Consider, for instance, the following headlines that have appeared in highly reputable international newspapers and journals over the past few years. From summer 2006, in the Hamburg Morgenpost: are we telephoning ourselves to death? That fall, in the Danish journal Dagens Medicin: mobile phones affect the brain’s metabolism. December 2007, from Agence France-Presse: israeli study says regular mobile use increases tumour risk. January 2008, in London’s Independent: mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep. September 2008, in Australia’s The Age: scientists warn of mobile phone cancer risk.

Though the scientific debate is heated and far from resolved, there are multiple reports, mostly out of Europe’s premier research institutions, of cell-phone and PDA use being linked to “brain aging,” brain damage, early-onset Alz­heimer’s, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs (many men, after all, keep their cell phones in their pants pockets or attached at the hip). In September 2007, the European Union’s environmental watchdog, the European Environment Agency, warned that cell-phone technology “could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol.”

Perhaps most worrisome, though, are the preliminary results of the multinational Interphone study sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, France. (Scientists from thirteen countries took part in the study, the United States conspicuously not among them.) Interphone researchers reported in 2008 that after a decade of cell-phone use, the chance of getting a brain tumor—specifically on the side of the head where you use the phone—goes up as much as 40 percent for adults. Interphone researchers in Israel have found that cell phones can cause tumors of the parotid gland (the salivary gland in the cheek), and an independent study in Sweden last year concluded that people who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 were five times as likely to develop a brain tumor. Another Interphone study reported a nearly 300 percent increased risk of acoustic neuroma, a tumor of the acoustic nerve.

As more results of the Interphone study trickled out, I called Louis Slesin, who has a doctorate in environmental policy from MIT and in 1980 founded an investigative newsletter called Microwave News. “No one in this country cared!” Slesin said of the findings. “It wasn’t news!” He suggested that much of the comfort of our modern lives depends on not caring, on refusing to recognize the dangers of microwave radiation. “We love our cell phones. The paradigm that there’s no danger here is part of a worldview that had to be put into place,” he said. “Americans are not asking the questions, maybe because they don’t want the answers. So what will it take?”

To understand how radiation from cell phones and wireless transmitters affects the human brain, and to get some sense of why the concerns raised in so many studies outside the U.S. are not being seriously raised here, it’s necessary to go back fifty years, long before the advent of the cell phone, to the research of a young neuroscientist named Allan Frey.

In 1960, Frey, then 25, was working at General Electric’s Advanced Electronics Center at Cornell University when he was contacted by a technician whose job was to measure the signals emitted by radar stations. At the time, Frey had taken an interest in the electrical nature of the human body, specifically in how electric fields affect neural functioning. The technician claimed something incredible: He said he could “hear” radar at one of the sites where he worked.

Frey traveled to the facility and stood in the radar field. “And sure enough, I could hear it, too,” he said, describing the persistent low-level hum. Frey went on to establish that the effect was real—electromagnetic (EM) radiation from radar could somehow be heard by human beings. The “hearing,” however, didn’t happen via normal sound waves perceived through the ear. It occurred somewhere in the brain itself, as EM waves interacted with the brain’s cells, which generate tiny electrical fields. This idea came to be known as the Frey effect, and it caused an uproar in the neuroscience community.

The waves that Frey was concerned with were those emitted from the nonionizing part of the EM spectrum—the part that scientists always assumed could do no outright biological damage. When Frey began his research, it was assumed that the only way microwaves could have a damaging biological effect was if you increased the power of their signals and concentrated them like sword points—to the level where they could cook flesh. In 1967, this resulted in the first popular microwave oven, which employed microwave frequencies at very high power, concentrated and contained in a metal box. Aside from this engineered thermal effect, the signals were assumed to be safe.

Allan Frey would help pioneer the science that suggested otherwise. At the vanguard of a new field of study that came to be known as bioelectromagnetics, he found what appeared to be grave nonthermal effects from microwave frequencies—the part of the spectrum that belongs not just to radar signals and microwave ovens but also, in the past fifteen years, to cell phones. (The only honest way to think of our cell phones is that they are tiny, low-power microwave ovens, without walls, that we hold against the sides of our heads.) Frey tested microwave radiation on frogs and other lab animals, targeting the eyes, the heart, and the brain, and in each case he found troubling results. In one study, he triggered heart arrhythmias. Then, using the right modulations of the frequency, he even stopped frog hearts with microwaves—stopped the hearts dead.

Frey observed two factors in how microwaves at low power could affect living systems. First, there was the carrier wave: a frequency of 1,900 megahertz, for example, the same frequency of many cell phones today. Then there was the data placed on the carrier wave—in the case of cell phones, this would be the sounds, words, and pictures that travel along it. When you add information to a carrier wave, it embeds a second signal—a second frequency—within the carrier wave. This is known as modulation. A carrier wave can support any number of modulations, even those that match the ­extra-low frequencies at which the brain operates (between eight and twenty hertz). It was modulation, Frey discovered, that induced the widest variety of biological effects. But how this happened, on a neuronal level, he didn’t yet understand.

In a study published in 1975 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frey reported that microwaves pulsed at certain modulations could induce “leakage” in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain. Breaching the blood-brain barrier is a serious matter: It means the brain’s environment, which needs to be extremely stable for nerve cells to function properly, can be perturbed in all kinds of dangerous ways. Frey’s method was rather simple: He injected a fluorescent dye into the circulatory system of white rats, then swept the ­microwave frequencies across their bodies. In a matter of minutes, the dye had leached into the confines of the rats’ brains.

Frey says his work on radar microwaves and the blood-brain barrier soon came under assault from the government. Scientists hired and funded by the Pentagon claimed they’d failed to replicate his findings, yet they also refused to share the data or methodology behind their research (“a most unusual action in science,” Frey wrote at the time). For more than fifteen years, Frey had received almost unrestricted funding from the Office of Naval Research. Now he was told to conceal his blood-brain-barrier work or his contract would be canceled.

Since then, no meaningful research into the effect of microwaves on the blood-brain barrier has been pursued in the United States. But a Swedish neurosurgeon, Leif Salford, recently expanded on Frey’s work, confirming much of what Frey revealed decades ago. Salford found that microwave exposure killed rodents’ brain cells and stimulated neurons associated with Alzheimer’s. “A rat’s brain is very much the same as a human’s,” he said in a 2003 interview with the BBC. “They have the same blood-brain barrier and neurons. We have good reason to believe that what happens in rats’ brains also happens in humans’. ” His research, he said, suggests that “a whole generation of [cell-phone] users may suffer negative effects in middle age.”

The potential complications don’t end there. In the mid-1990s, a biophysicist at the University of Washington named Henry Lai began to make profound discoveries about the effects of such frequencies not only on the blood-brain barrier but also on the actual structure of rat DNA. Lai found that modulated EM radiation could cause breaks in DNA strands—breaks that could then lead to genetic damage and mutations that would be passed on for generations. What surprised Lai was that the damage was accomplished in a single two-hour exposure.

“This was explosive news,” Slesin said. “The reason it was so important was at the time you had all these allegations of brain tumors and cell phones being connected”—specifically the 1992 lawsuit brought by a Florida man, David Reynard, against a number of companies that manufactured phones and provided cell service, following the death of his wife from a brain tumor. “If you can break up DNA with cell-phone radiation, suddenly it’s not such a stretch to think of brain tumors developing from this radiation.”

Galvanized by the Reynard case, Motorola frantically mobilized to reassure its investors. Then, in 1994, the company went on the attack to discredit Lai, issuing a memo, later obtained by Slesin, stating it had “war-gamed” Lai’s work. “We do not believe that Motorola should put anyone on-camera,” the memo said. “We must limit our corporate visibility.” It further stated that the “key question” was whether “this experiment [can] be replicated.”

The cell-phone industry funds lots of risk studies, and many of them show no effect from cell-phone-related radiation. The industry pointed to those favorable studies when countering Lai’s DNA findings. (In 2004, it should be pointed out, a European Union–funded study carried out by twelve research groups in seven countries found evidence of genotoxic effects resulting from cell-phone radiation—the same kind of DNA damage that Henry Lai uncovered in the 1990s.) But when Jerry Phillips, a scientist with the Veterans Administration whose work was funded by Motorola, replicated Lai’s findings, the company put him under so much pressure not to publish that Phillips abruptly quit microwave research altogether.

Industry-funded studies seem to reflect the result of corporate strong-arming. Lai reviewed 350 studies and found that about half showed bioeffects from EM radiation emitted by cell phones. But when he took into consideration the funding sources for those 350 studies, the results changed dramatically. Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded.

The cell-phone industry has managed to exert its influence in other ways, too. In the United States, the organization most influential in the government’s setting of standards for microwave exposure is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which bills itself as “a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers, and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power, and consumer electronics.” According to Slesin, “The committees setting the EM safety levels at the IEEE historically have been dominated by representatives from the military, companies like Raytheon and GE, the telecom companies, and now the cell-phone industry. It is basically a Trojan horse for the private sector to dictate public policy.” The IEEE’s “safe limits” for microwave exposure are considerably higher than what they should be, says Allan Frey, who was a member of the organization in the ’70s. “When it comes to this matter, the IEEE is a charade,” Frey told me.

There have been attempts over the years to set exposure limits based on something other than industry and military preference. In the ’70s and ’80s, the Environmental Protection Agency was foremost in this effort. But with Ronald Reagan in office, antiregulatory sentiment crested and the EPA’s research and standards programs were gutted.

Among the EPA’s most talented bioelectromagnetics experts at the time was Carl Blackman, who has worked at the agency since its inception in 1970. Blackman’s research at the EPA would advance much of what Allan Frey and others had discovered: The effects from EM fields were many and troubling, though far from fully understood. In 1986 the EPA killed Blackman’s research entirely. Carl Blackman believes “a decision was made to stop the civilian agencies from looking too deeply into the nonthermal health effects from exposure to EM fields. Scientists who have shown such effects over the years have been silenced, had funding taken away, been laughed at, been called charlatans and con men. The goal was to only let in scientists who would say, ‘We know that microwave ovens can cook meat, and that’s all we need to know.’ ” One veteran EPA physicist, speaking anonymously, told me, “The Department of Defense didn’t like our research because the exposure limits that we might recommend would curtail their activities.”

Industry influence appears to have permeated even the purest international watchdogs, such as the World Health Organization. Slesin unearthed a hoard of documents showing that hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cell-phone industry was doled out to WHO personnel working on wireless health effects. Some of the heaviest pressure falls on the Federal Communications Commission, for obvious reasons. In 2005 the specially appointed thirty-member Technological Advisory Council to the FCC sought to look into EM effects on human beings. According to one member of the TAC who spoke anonymously, officials at the FCC “told us we couldn’t talk about that. They would not give us any reason. The FCC people were embarrassed and terrified.”

If all this sounds like some abandoned X-Files script, consider the history of suppression of evidence in the major issues of consumer health over the past half century. Big Tobacco hid the dangers of smoking and the addictiveness of nicotine, supporting its position with countless deceptive studies. Asbestos manufacturers hid evidence that the mineral was dangerous even as tens of thousands of workers died from exposure; the makers of DDT and Agent Orange stood behind their products even as it became clear that the herbicides caused cancer. That the cell-phone industry, which last year posted revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars, has an incentive to shut down research showing the dangers of cell-phone use is not a radical notion.

Cell towers, as you’d imagine, also emit EM radiation in the microwave spectrum, and while the science is much less exhaustive than that associated with handsets, the installations have nonetheless incited violence in various places around the globe. In Spain and Ireland, saboteurs have taken to destroying cell towers, cheered on by the communities living in their shadows. In Sydney, Australia, a retired telecom worker, convinced that cell towers had sickened him, hijacked a tank in the summer of 2007 and rammed six towers to the ground before police were able to leap into the vehicle and subdue him. In Israel, which has the seventh-highest per capita use of mobile phones in the world, attacks on towers have become a regular occurrence in recent years in both Jewish and Arab communities. Two years ago in Galilee, a Druze community protested the erection of a new tower, claiming that the towers already in their midst had caused cancer rates to skyrocket. The tower was built anyway; soon after, local teenagers

burned it down. When the police came for them, the Druze rioted, injuring more than twenty-five officers.

Here, in the U.S., there’s been very little resistance to the march of the cell towers. In fact, in Congress there’s been almost nothing but support. The Telecommunications Act of 1996—a watershed for the cell-phone industry—was the result, in part, of nearly $50 million in political contributions and lobbying largesse from the telecom industry. The prize in the TCA for telecom companies branching into wireless was a rider known as Section 704, which specifically prohibits citizens and local governments from stopping placement of a cell tower due to health concerns. Section 704 was clear: There could be no litigation to oppose cell towers because the signals make you sick.

When President Bill Clinton signed the TCA into law in February 1996, the rollout of “personal communication services,” marketed as PCS, was in full swing. By the end of the year, telecom companies had paid the federal government more than $8 billion to purchase portions of the microwave-frequency sequence. (According to the FCC, fees paid for allocation of spectrum as of 2009 amounted to $52 billion.) Almost immediately, cell-phone antennas sprang up across the country, appearing on church steeples and apartment buildings, in parks and along highways, on streetlights and clock towers and flagpoles. One industry estimate tallied 19,850 such installations in the U.S. in 1995. Today there are 247,000, most hosting multiple antennas.

In a study by researchers associated with the venerable Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which hands out the Nobel Prize for medicine, the massive expansion of digital PCS in Sweden during 1997 was found to have coincided with a marked but subtle decline in the overall health of the population. Might it be, the Karolinska researchers asked, that Swedes fell victim to the march of the first big microwave PCS systems? The number of Swedish workers on sick leave, after declining for years, began to rise abruptly in late 1997, according to the study, doubling during the next five years. Sales of antidepressant drugs doubles during the same period. The number of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease rose sharply in 1999 and had nearly doubled by 2001. The authors of the study—Olle Johansson, a neuroscientist, and Örjan Hallberg, a former environmental manager for Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications company—”found that for all individual counties in Sweden there was a similar precise time” when health worsened. It

occured, they said, almost simultaneously with the rollout of the new digital service. Correlation does not mean causation, but epidemiologists I spoke with say the data are strongly suggestive and need to be followed up. (In other studies at the Karolinska Institute, Johansson has posited that adverse reactions to cell-phone radiation may develop only after long periods of exposure, as the immune system fails, much in the way that allergies develop.)

All of these concerns—the danger of microwaves issuing from the phones we place next to our skulls, the danger of waves emitted by the cell towers that dot our landscapes—also apply to the Wi-Fi networks in our homes and libraries and offices and cafés and parks and neighborhoods. Wi-Fi operates typically at a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz (the same frequency as microwave ovens) but is embedded with a wider range of modulations than cell phones, because we need it to carry more data. “It never ceases to surprise me that people will fight a cell tower going up in their neighborhoods,” Blake Levitt, author of Electromagnetic Fields: A Consumer’s Guide to the Issues and How to Protect Ourselves, told me. “They they’ll install a Wi-Fi system in their homes. That’s like inviting a cell tower indoors.”

In the summer of 2006, a super-Wi-Fi system known as WiMAX was tested in rural Sweden. Bombarded with signals, the residents of the village of Götene—who had no knowledge that the transmitter had come online—were overcome by headaches, difficulty breathing, and blurred vision, according to a Swedish news report. Two residents reported to the hospital with heart arrhythmias, similar to those that, more than thirty years ago, Allen Frey induced in frog hearts. This happened only hours after the system was turned on, and as soon as it was powered down, the symptoms disappeared.

Today, Sprint Nextel and Clearwire are set to establish similar technology across the U.S., with a $7.2 billion government broadband stimulus speeding the rollout. A single WiMAX system would provide Internet coverage for an area of up to 75 square miles. “This means an even denser layer of radio-frequency pollution on top of what has developed over the last two decades,” Blake Levitt says. “WiMAX will require many new antennas.”

The concern about Wi-Fi is being taken seriously in Europe. In April 2008, the national library of France, citing possible “genotoxic effects,” announced it would shut down its Wi-Fi system, and the staff of the storied Library of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris followed up with a petition demanding the disconnection of Wi-Fi antennas and their replacement by wired connections. Several European governments are already moving to prohibit Wi-Fi in government buildings and on campuses, and the Austrian Medical Association is lobbying for a ban of all Wi-Fi systems in schools, citing the danger to children’s thinner skulls and developing nervous systems.

I drove down to Annapolis, Maryland, recently to visit with Allan Frey. He was preparing to set out on his forty-foot sailboat for a month at sea, so we talked at a restaurant near the marina. After retiring from full-time research in 1985, Frey, now 75, took up the philosophy of science as an avocation, looking at the question of how science progresses, how it fails to progress, how new ideas are birthed or aborted, how a shift in paradigm is a rare thing. The failure to look squarely at the dangers of microwave radiation is a case study in frozen paradigms, he said, a worldview that can’t keep pace with reality.

To illustrate what he meant, Frey held up a glass of water. “We’re all just big teacups, bags of water that you can heat up—that’s the paradigm,” he said. It’s the engineer’s paradigm, the mind-set of people who had no training in the complexity of living systems. The branches of the military, the major defense contractors, the manufacturers of microwave ovens, the telecom companies, were happy to embrace the engineer’s paradigm. The thinking was simple and easy to understand, and most important, it indemnified their operations from liability.

“It’s a very primitive mind-set,” said Frey. “Plato said we don’t see the reality; we see shadows on the cave walls. We’ve got a lot of people who are seeing shadows and saying this is the reality.” He nodded at his water glass. “We now know a human being isn’t a bag of water. A human being is a complex organization of electrical fields. Electroencephalograms and electrocardiograms, for example, measure these fields. Every cell has an electrical field across the cell membrane, which is a regulatory interface and controls what goes into and out of the cell. All nerve signals are electric. And between the nucleus and the membrane there is an electrical field, you can measure voltages of individual cells! Electricity drives biology. We evolved in a particular electromagnetic environment”—the magnetic fields from the earth’s iron core, the terrestrial magnetism from lodestones, visible light, ultraviolet frequencies, lightning—”and if we change that environment as we have, we either adapt or we have trouble.”

Later, after Frey and I parted, I walked around Annapolis and took note of the number of cell towers poised atop the buildings, the number of people who talked on their cell phones. They were everywhere, and after a while I stopped counting. At one point, I watched two women pacing in a parking lot, heads bent against their microwave transmitters. They talked and talked and aimlessly circled. When I got home, I looked up a line from Orwell that I couldn’t quite remember as I watched them, about the power that machine technology would exert over mankind. “The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug—that is, grudgingly and suspiciously,” Orwell wrote. “Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.”

Modern society, needless to say, is in the grip of wireless technology. All you have to do to understand this is step outside your door. “It just so happens,” Frey had told me, “that the frequencies and modulations of our cell phones seem to be the frequencies that humans are particularly sensitive to. If we had looked into it a little more, if we had done the real science, we could have allocated spectrums that the body can’t feel. The public should know if they are taking a risk with cell phones. What we’re doing is a grand world experiment without informed consent.” As for Louis Slesin’s question—what will it take to change the paradigm?—Frey shook his head. “Until there are bodies in the streets,” he said, “I don’t think anything is going to change.”

Christopher Ketcham is a reporter in New York City. Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

Sexual Techinques & Fun


Mail & Guradian Online
India teaches the Kama Sutra to combat HIV
 NEW DELHI  – Aug 07 2003 14:20

http://mg.co.za/article/2003-08-07-india-teaches-the-kama-sutra-to-combat-hiv

Officials in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal are teaching sex workers the traditional Hindu treatise on sex, Kama Sutra, in an attempt to check the spread of HIV/Aids, a report said on Thursday.

The courses are being conducted by the state government’s Aids Control Society at Sonagachi, the red light area of the state’s capital Calcutta. It is being backed by India’s Institute of Social Development (IISD), a non-governmental organisation, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

The courses are aimed at teaching the prostitutes how to use Kama Sutra techniques to help their clients derive sexual pleasure without actually engaging in sexual intercourse. IISD chief Rajyashree Choudhury said the techniques would help sex workers whose clients refuse to use condoms.

“The prostitutes have to give in or lose the customer. This increases the risk of spreading the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) among the girls if they give in and also to men when they find someone who will agree to unprotected sex,” she said.

“Since 88% of HIV/Aids cases come from unsafe sex, the various ways laid down in the Kama Sutra can be resorted to by prostitutes to help their customers achieve pleasure. The girls are quite responsive,” Choudhury said.

Last year, West Bengal reported 1 137 new HIV cases and so far this year 603 new cases have been reported.

India has about four-million HIV/Aids cases according to the United Nations Aids control organisation UNAids. – Sapa-DPA

Catholic Kama Sutra

MAEV KENNEDY: BODY LANGUAGE Jun 04 2009 06:00

http://mg.co.za/article/2009-06-04-catholic-kama-sutra

The correct Roman Catholic sexual position is not, as many might imagine, missionary, infrequent and with the lights out, but “saucy, surprising and fantasy packed”.

The bleak traditional view was St Paul’s injunction to the Corinthians: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” However, a Polish priest who has written a best-selling sex manual dubbed the “Catholic Kama Sutra” believes it is better still to marry and burn with passion.

The first edition of the book by Father Ksawery Knotz, a Franciscan from a monastery outside Krakow, titled Seks (in very large letters) and “for married couples who love God” in rather smaller type, has sold out and is being hastily reprinted in Warsaw.

“Every act — a type of caress, a sexual position — with the goal of arousal is permitted and pleases God,” he writes. “During sexual intercourse, married couples can show their love in every way, can offer one another the most sought-after caresses. They can employ manual and oral stimulation.”

His book has the blessing of the Polish Catholic Church and follows the orthodox line in many ways: he firmly addresses only married couples and discourages the use of any form of contraception, saying it can “lead a married couple outside of Catholic culture and into a completely different lifestyle”. But within those confines, couples are urged to let rip.

“Some people, when they hear about the holiness of married sex, immediately imagine that such sex has to be deprived of joy, frivolous play, fantasy and attractive positions. They think it has to be sad like a traditional church hymn,” he writes. Calling sex a celebration of the marriage sacrament raises its dignity in an exceptional way. Such a statement shocks people who learned to look at sexuality in a bad way. It is difficult for them to understand that God is also interested in their happy sex life, and in this way gives them his gift.”

If not shocked, some readers might wonder what a celibate priest knows about the subject. Conceding that a priest writing a book about sex is seen as sensational, he insists that his experience may be second hand but is extensive.

“I talk with a lot of married couples and I listen to them, so these problems just kind of sit in my mind,” he said. “I would like for them to be happier with their sex life, and for them to understand the church’s teachings so there won’t be unnecessary tension or a sense of guilt.” He has also run a website offering sexual advice to the devout for the past year.

Warm, fulfilling discussions are ongoing about translations into Slovakian, Italian and English. The publishers are in ecstasy. — © Guardian News & Media 2009

Anything & Everything & Philosophy

You actually know the answer…but you may be afraid of it.

Sex… 10% of your life when it goes well, 90% of your life when it goes wrong.

Blessed are the cracked
for they let in the light
(unknown source)

Pain, chronic illness and weight gain; no quick fix…BUT you can manage and master them…they are life lessons about your best self.

You really are what you eat.

‘The Force’ be with you…
– Obiwan Kenobe
It really does help! Though it has not explained why, Science has now proven that belief in a force/power greater than the self seems to enable humans to tap resources of healing and resiliance that cannot be tapped if one sees only the finite nature of life.

“Nobody has ever been able to figure me out…
to my satisfaction…”   (Me :))

Before enlightenment – chop wood, carry water
After enlightment – chop wood, carry water.
(unknown eastern source)

The Spiral is not an accident; it is a mathematical fractal which is a form repeatedly adopted by nature as the most efficient for a given purpose.  Perhaps part of  ‘the logic’ behind the Spiral is strength.  I cannot think of a spiral whose focus is entropic, it is always enthalpic…and there is no limit to the scope of its organising ability…however, the entity it creates can wreak entropy on a massive scale.  Natural spirals are an inner to outer or outer to inner trajectory but you can create a ‘double-ended’ spiral…put your fingers at the centre point of a piece of cord and twist like a fork in spaghetti…you get an organising principal that begins at the centre rather than at one end…  This eventually brings two ends closer and closer together on parallel circuits…
You have one life/existence…it goes from beginning to end…or does it …?   What if  ‘life’ is a kind of energetic ‘double ended’  spiral dimension?  Nothing ever actually touches something else so…the points at which the parallels ‘touched’ randomly formed a shortcut to the future or back to the past…a kind of wormhole?   Maybe the meditation mazes we walk haven’t got it quite right…maybe we should be able to enter one end and come out another…  Maybe the Hindus and Chinese do know something…the sacred swastika, the ying/yang circle …kundalini flow…

DNA                                          The myelin sheath
Collagen                                     Curschmann’s Spirals
Nautilus                                     Conch shells
Water down the drain                         Some leaves to stems
Some petals to flowers                       The expulsive force of the whale’s uterus on giving birth
Whirlpools                                   Hurricanes
Tornadoes                                    Some galaxies

You think sound has no effect on health?  Try this…  A member of the Krebs cycle discovery team taught me biochemistry and in one session we were treated to an unusual and attractive piece of recorded music.  Source?  The structure of a molecule of human collagen.  It turns out…that when you untwist the helical five strand structure leaving fragments of the sub-molecules that bind the the five strands…in 2D, it forms a facsimile of a musical staff (the long strands) with notes (the sub-molecular links of the strands) and sounds musical if transposed as notes!  So…if ‘we are music’…why would harmony not soothe us and cacophony and violent sound not derange us?…  And if you unravel spiral collagen and get a musical pattern…and a galaxy is a spiral…the music of the orbs/stars?

If you’re that different, you may not necessarily find a mentor…
but you could probably become one… (Me)

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same…
– Rudyard Kipling

When you’re down to nothing…
God is up to something!

Life goes on…  Are you coming?
– Billy Rayburn@Smashwords ebooks

Lady, you need to stop your dawg pooping on my lawn
My dog doesn’t do it
Really, well why don’t I put it back where it came from and see if it fits..
-an ‘ex’ 🙂


Neck & Back

Say ‘neck & back” to a Jamaican and they will automatically think ‘chicken’; these are parts popularly eaten, but let’s get serious…

The Hindu saying is that you’re as young or old as your back.  It’s true.

Did you know that leaping into the McKenzie Exercises in the full swing of a flare (acute on chronic) or the inflammation of a new injury may do more harm than good?  McKenzie is brilliant and definitely has it’s place BUT you may need to start with the Knight or Egoscue Systems first. They are passive and almost static.

Furthermore…NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE PILLOW FACTOR…’ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL’…

Let me guide you…feel free to ask me more.