Consuming Chemicals : Rethinking What We Heat, Serve and Eat (By Sarah (Steve) Mosko, Ph.D.)

Consuming Chemicals : Rethinking What We Heat, Serve and Eat (By Sarah (Steve) Mosko, Ph.D.)

What do breast milk, food cans, microwave popcorn, and fast-food French fry boxes have in common with meat, fish and dairy products? They’re all avenues of human ingestion of potentially harmful chemicals associated with everyday plastics.

BPA is a key ingredient of the epoxy resin that lines metal food cans and jar lids.

Although the jury is still out on what levels of exposure are unsafe, it is indisputable that we all consume chemicals from plastics on a daily basis.

Biomonitoring projects like Environmental Working Group’s 2005 BodyBurden study of cord blood in neonates and the Mind, Disrupted investigation of blood and urine in adults representing the learning and developmental disabilities community published in February 2010—consistently find neurotoxic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in common plastics among the substances routinely tainting human tissues. Although diet is not the only route of exposure, it is a major one.

Given that developing fetuses and young children are most vulnerable to environmental toxins, understanding how exposure occurs through ordinary diets, and how to avoid it, has become a growing societal concern.

Three constituents of common plastics that find their way into food or drinks are described below, all linked to ill health effects in humans and lab animals. In the Mind, Disrupted study, the subjects universally tested positive for all three: bisphenol-A, brominated flame retardants, and perfluorinated compounds. The variety of avenues into the human diet is surprising.

Bisphenol-A

Originally synthesized a century ago as a synthetic estrogen, bisphenol-A (BPA) was utilized instead to make baby bottles, reusable water bottles, and food storage containers upon discovery that polymerization produced clear, shatter-proof plastics dubbed polycarbonates. It’s also a key ingredient of the epoxy resin that lines metal food cans and jar lids, including infant formula.

Over 90% of Americans have BPA in their urine, according to the 2003–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of the U.S. population. Young children generally have the highest levels because they lack an enzyme that breaks down BPA. Leaching of BPA from containers into food and beverages is thought to be the main route of exposure.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set a now outdated safe exposure standard of <50ug/kg/day>

Responding to the newer findings, the National Toxicology Program Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction released a monograph in September 2008 admitting “some concern” that current levels of exposure in fetuses, infants and children may result in developmental changes in the brain, prostate and behavior. In January 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted its support for voluntary moves by industry to both stop selling BPA-containing baby bottles and feeding cups and develop alternatives to BPA-lined infant formula cans, but it stopped short of recommending bans on BPA or that parents change use of infant formula or foods.

Only Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin have passed laws banning BPA in children’s foodware and drinkware.

Brominated Flame Retardants

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a family of flame retardants in widespread use in consumer products, including plastics for electronics and electrical devices. Because PBDEs are not permanently bonded to the plastic polymers, they migrate out into the environment.

Properties of PBDEs include resistance to biodegradation and affinity for fats, allowing them to persist in the environment and bioaccumulate in the food web. PBDEs were found in nearly 100% of blood samples in the 2003-2004 NHANES survey. Consumption of meat, fish and dairy products is thought to be a primary route of exposure.

However, it was the discovery of infant exposure to PBDEs via rising levels in human breast milk in the United States and Europe that set off a chorus of alarm about health risks to humans.

PBDEs have been marketed in the United States in three commercial mixtures, so-called penta, octa and deca formulations. Because of animal data linking penta and octa to serious health impairments—including liver, thyroid and reproductive toxicity and especially developmental neurotoxicity—domestic manufacture of penta and octa was voluntarily phased out in 2004. However, levels of penta and octa in humans continue to rise, attributable in part to widespread use of deca which can break down into other forms.

In December 2009, the EPA outlined an action plan to reduce human exposure to PBDEs which recommended only a voluntary phase out of deca in lieu of a federal restriction. California is among 11 states that have enacted bans on penta and octa.

However, even public health-advocacy organizations that support phase-out of all PBDEs, like Environmental Working Group, do not recommend that parents stop breastfeeding because of breastfeeding’s positive impact on other measures of infant well-being.

Perfluorinated Compounds

Perfluorinated Compounds (PFCs) are synthetic polymers that find their way into food applications because they repel oils and water. They are the key ingredient of grease/water-resistant coatings on non-stick cookware (e.g. Teflon®), pizza boxes, microwave popcorn, and fast-food wrappers.

The most studied PFCs are PFOA (perfluorooctanoate) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonate) which are known to persist seemingly indefinitely once released into the environment and consequently build up in the food web. They also persist in human tissues: The half-life of PFOA and PFOS in human blood is roughly four to five years, according to a 2007 study of retirees of a PFC manufacturing facility.

Ninety-eight percent of the blood samples in the 2003-2004 NHANES project contained PFOA and PFOS. Breast milk contaminated with PFOA and PFOS was detected in 98% of Massachusetts women participating in a 2004 study. Dietary intake of meat, fish and dairy products is thought to be a major route of exposure along with consumption of foods contaminated through contact with grease/water-resistant packaging (e.g. fast foods).

Non-stick cookware, when heated to high temperatures, has also been shown to release substances that might taint foods per tests performed by Environmental Working Group.

The list of potential health effects linked to PFCs in human and animals studies is long and includes cancers, high cholesterol, liver and developmental toxicity, thyroid hormone disruption and infertility.

No U.S. jurisdiction has yet limited the used of PFOA or PFOS in food contact substances.

CONTACT: Mind, Disrupted.

SARAH (STEVE) MOSKO, PH.D., is an environmental writer living in California who blogs at Boogie Green

Pure Water, Pure Consciousness: Finding a Water Filter That Works

Pure Water, Pure Consciousness: Finding a Water Filter That Works

To understand something as important and beautiful as pure water we need to understand consciousness because pure consciousness and pure water have many things in common. Though absolute, pure water does not exist outside of a laboratory except as a concept, pure consciousness is not a concept, but it is rarely experienced or perceived in its pure form.

"Ask yourself what the world's most precious commodity is, and you might say gold; you might say diamonds. You'd be wrong on both counts. The answer is water. If by "most precious" we mean what's most desired by most people, nothing comes close to water -- fresh, clean water, that is." - Michael McCarthy

Pure consciousness, what is that? It is much easier to say what it isn't than what it is. If we sit down in meditation and relax until we do not feel our bodies, then slow our minds down till there are no more thoughts to think, and calm our hearts until there is no more emotion, no feeling, no hearing, and no images in our imagination, what do we have left? Nothing but our very own pure consciousness; pure awareness is what is left and this is the foundation of everything that we are.

Water and consciousness are both remarkable substances. Water for example, although we drink it, wash with it, fish and swim in it, and cook with it, we tend to overlook the special relationship it has with our lives. Without water, we would die within a week. Now consider pure consciousness, without it we die in a nano-second. We use it all the time for the most basic life processes, to think, imagine, feel, plan, touch, taste, see and hear with, yet we pay it no attention.

Pure consciousness is an idea that a physicist would be more comfortable with because the best comparison to it would be the black light of space. We normally look up into the nighttime sky and see the blackness of space in-between the stars thinking that space is absent of light. Such thoughts are foolish because in each square centimeter of black space is all the light of the universe. So intensely full of light is space that we cannot see it because it would burn our retina in an instant.
Most of us are not familiar with the dynamics of our own consciousness nor do we bother to train ourselves in meditation to perceive the pure light within for it is an intensely dynamic space that is difficult to pin down. In that space we call pure consciousness, even one thought crashes us out of it, like being kicked out of heaven. But back we can go when we re-silence the mind, which we can do if we train ourselves to do it.

As it is with consciousness it is with water. Anything added makes it impure. One very small drop of mercury will destroy many gallons of pure water, polluting it terribly. The pure is highly vulnerable to the impure. This is the most basic similarity between water and consciousness as is the fact that both immediately take the shape of anything. The thought arises in consciousness and consciousness takes the exact shape of the thought. Water will fit into any vessel and it will accommodate any chemical, any poison, any heavy metal in its breast. Dirty water and dirty consciousness seem like cousins and they are. Those who would dirty our waters by adding poisons to the water like fluoride are dirty and indecent in their consciousness as well. And those who would sell us filtering equipment that does not remove this cancer-causing agent are playing a game that puts their commercial interests above their responsibility to protect our children and ourselves from harm.

We are water and we are consciousness and the purer we can keep both the better off we are. To ensure our families the best health possible we have to be dedicated. We have to invest our consciousness in subjects like water and learn to be wise about it. So many of us take our water for granted just as we take our consciousness for granted.

"Each year in the U.S., lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children and 560,000 cases of hypertension in adult males." - U.S. EPA

The cost of distancing ourselves from the purity of consciousness and the purity of water are astronomical. Only when we care about purity will we really contemplate on our absolute need for the purest water possible. When we do sit down and concentrate our consciousness on pure water we come to see it as a powerful medicine for prevention and treatment of disease.

"In 1994 and 1995, 45 million Americans drank water from water systems that fell short of SDWA standards." - Environmental Protection Agency

Pure water is a most basic medicine though it can contain health and life giving substances like magnesium and calcium and still be considered pure, at least by the meaning we are putting out here. It is the same with pure consciousness as well. A person can be in touch with their pure consciousness and this does not mean that the person will never have a thought running through their brain.

The funny thing about pure water is that it can be full of impurities and still look pure. That's why we can so easily deceive ourselves and drink life destroying water from our taps, wells, and yes even bottled water. And we find the same in human consciousness. A person can be all dressed up in lily white garments and say all the right words and behave most of the time correctly yet still hurt people.
The pure water that we will be studying, achievable through various treatment/filtering approaches, is dynamic and is dependent on water inputted into our filtering systems and what we do to that water. As with consciousness, it is with water. We need to understand the impurities to reach understanding of the pure. When it comes to our approach to the best water possible we have to pay attention even to what we store the water in. Plastic, as we will see, is just the next disaster waiting to happen to our water, our lives and to the ecology of the entire planet. The chances of water remaining pure stored in some kinds of plastic are close to zero.

"35% of the reported gastrointestinal illnesses among tap water drinkers were water related and preventable." - Center For Disease Control

Some scientists believe that for every outbreak of poisoning from water reported in the United States, another ten may be occurring. One such study found that as many as one in three gastrointestinal illnesses -- often chalked up to "stomach flu" -- are caused by drinking water contaminated with microorganisms. It was only ten years ago that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the EPA advised that people with weakened immune systems should consult with their doctors and consider boiling their drinking water to kill any cryptosporidium.

Detoxification is probably the single most important component to long-term health and this has become increasingly true each year, as environmental chemicals have built up all around us. Successful detoxification and chelation are totally dependent on an adequate intake of good water. Water is our body's only means of flushing out toxins. The more water we drink, and the purer and more alkaline that water is, the more we allow our body to purify itself.

Since almost all degenerative diseases are the result of toxins, water becomes and is the most basic and essential medicine we have to employ. Thus the quality of the water we drink is equally as important as the amount. If water already contains chlorine and other chemicals‚ it has less of an ability to carry toxins out of our body. If we consume water that contains traces of synthetic chemicals‚ then we force our liver and kidneys to be the filter. It makes much more sense, if we care about our health, to externalize the filtering of water with one of the three basic types of filtering systems widely available. Instead of ultimately damaging or destroying our liver and kidneys and destroying healthy cell environments we let the filters do the work for us. Money is well spent on filtering our water. Bottled water, on the other hand, is a poor and insecure substitute for the care we must individually put into our own water supplies. With an abundant intake of clean‚ healthy water we allow our body to perform all the healing processes that it is naturally capable of and this makes all the difference in the world with all the other medical or naturopathic treatments we employ.

When you bring things down to the very simple level of the pure it becomes crystal clear that healing is about bringing a person back to a relatively purer state. What it comes down to is this. What do you think would be better when you are sick and run down? What would you put down your throat, some poison or something pure in its ability to cleanse you of the impure? In reality there are many people who think a little poison will do the trick. Most of these people who believe this are of course doctors, dentists and nurses and hundreds of millions of people who worship at the allopathic alter and have no problem swallowing the toxic drugs and medicated water recommended to them.

"Unhealthy drinking water affects children in different ways than it does adults. There is cause for special concern for the health of children who do." - Natural Resources Defense Council

Water is what we make it out to be; for we as a society pollute and treat it and we are the ones who can treat it again inside of our own homes. We can protect our family and drink pure healthy water but to do this we have to treat the water ourselves. Most people buy a cheap carbon filter and think they're protected when they are not. If we are using tap water, no matter where in the world we live, it is safe to assume that every time we go to the faucet for a drink or take a shower we are taking toxins into our bodies. Point-of-use water treatments systems today (filtration, Reverse Osmosis, Distilled) are extremely viable and readily available means by which water of extremely high quality can be provided. In today's world with water supplies being what they are, any good home based water treatment method is much better than no treatment at all. When we get into comparing one type of water processing system with another, disagreements break out about which is the best or healthiest water to drink.

"As to carbon filtered and reverse osmosis (RO) water, these are better solutions than tap water or mineral water, however they still fall far short of the standard set by distilled water." - Dr. Ron Kennedy

If we consider that a good carbon filtration system can remove above 95 percent of all water impurities, we can consider them as a viable and convenient option. Yes reverse osmosis and distilled water will be purer and thus in need of some kind of re-mineralization treatment for optimal healthy water. Filters can be used with confidence as long as one does not push the life cycle of the carbon and one's selection of filter takes out most of the fluoride, which many do not.

When it comes to water, we cannot afford to be lazy. We have to take a good look at what is in our local water supply and decide what we are going to do about it. We cannot allow our public water officials to pull a rug over our eyes. We cannot afford to fall back on crude beliefs and basic assumptions but have to examine all sides of the issue and look into the facts. It's a fact that William K. Reilly, Administrator of the EPA under the first Bush Administration, classified drinking water contamination among the top four public health risks posed by environmental problems.

Why don't we hear our present health and medical officials warning us about our water? Some experts estimate that 560,000 people become moderately to severely ill each year from consuming contaminated water. About 10,700 bladder and rectal cancers each year may be associated with Trihalomethanes (THMs) in the water and their chemical cousins. That translates into about thirty cancers per day and that estimate is from fifteen years ago or when there were literally billions of tons less of chemical poisons in the environment. All we hear from the CDC is their fears of the bird flu to justify even more vaccines with which to poison the public with.

When it comes to the concept of pure water, it is just accepted that nothing can compete with distilled water for purity but some RO systems do come quite close. But some doctors, despite the fact that distilled water has been used by spas around the world for serious detoxification programs, complain that going for 100 percent purity with water has its disadvantages. The worst option is to drink tap water with the second worst option being bottled water sold in plastic.

Dr. Masaru Emoto has demonstrated that the relationship between water and consciousness is not a joke. Dr. Emoto took samples of water from various sources, froze a few droplets, examined them under a dark field microscope and photographed them. He experimented first with water from a pure source in Japan. The picture revealed a beautiful crystalline form. He then did the same thing with water from a nearby-polluted river. The result was a muddy, smeared pattern with very little structure. He then asked a priest from a temple to offer a prayer to the polluted water sample and repeated the experiment out of curiosity. To his surprise, another beautiful crystalline structure appeared. The Crystalline structure produced by "Thank you" in Japanese and the crystalline structure produced by "You make me sick, I will kill you." strikingly showed the difference in their final form.

To deal effectively with pure water, we in fact have to become the manager of our own water treatment plant. After all who are we going to trust? Those who put poisons like chloramines and fluoride into the water or ourselves? To take responsibility for our own water is an important act of love. Pure consciousness and purified water are bound together by love. It is the unloving among us that pollute our waters and the indecent who deliberately put poisons into the waters thinking they are doing us all a favor.

It is our obligation to strive for the purest water possible. Deciding what system is best for our needs is a very individual and personal process and there is no filtering system that is best for everyone. If we want pure water we have to put our devotion to it, our spirit, and some financial resources but we shall be surprised at how little a reasonably good system can cost. In a world with inequalities of wealth, we have to pause and consider what we can afford in time, energy and financial resources. Very few can afford the kind of systems that can handle every problem with water but for very little we can do some amazing things to the water we drink.

Note: Beware of the quick and uninformed opinion about water. There is tremendous disagreement here as everywhere. Everyone in the water business is going to try to sell you something. - Mark Sircus Ac., OMD

Be Your Own Doctor, Part II (Opinion)

Be Your Own Doctor, Part II (Opinion)
To be our own doctor, we must see that our undesirable eating habits as well as our generally poor health habits due to ignorance, confusion and conditioning deprive our bodies of their strength and vitality. This tends to provoke a mental and spiritual drain as well.

Nature is capable of eliminating body poisoning or putrefaction from itself, regardless of whether the cause of the problem is physical, mental or spiritual. All that's required is giving Nature the help it needs by living a rational life and developing desirable habits of good health.

Most all disease is one disease - toxemia (body poisoning). It is a different name in different parts of the body, but actually the cause of most all disease is the same - self pollution and vitality drain.

Unless a body part has been destroyed by chronic self-pollution, most all disease can be healed by the body itself. Chemical imbalance starts with an irritation that becomes inflamed. Then, self-pollution of the blood stream's circulatory system degenerates into chronic putrefaction of the entire "plumbing" system.

Our minds have been intensively indoctrinated into accepting efficient treatment of disease; we have the trite assumption that the treating of a symptom is not only adequate, but also the only medically acceptable method of treatment. Talk about "theater of the absurd"!

The fact that a medically trained doctor, sworn to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, continues to haphazardly over-drug, promiscuously mutilates with a scalpel, senselessly over-stabs with the needle, poisons with chemicals and overkills live cells with x-ray is abominable. Yet, the unsuspecting public has been taught to respect, honor and obey the physician as a father figure, licensed for manslaughter, equal to God.

Labeled as "curing the patient", the medical world makes the mistake of treating effects (symptoms) believing them to be the cause of bodily disturbance. For example: a vital organ develops a symptom. The doctor hurriedly removes the organ by surgery. The result: Cure! Yet, the real problem, toxemia poisoning, is still there.

Because the members of the American Medical Profession lack training in nutrition and biological hygiene training, removal of the part seems to justify the whole. Given the proper conditions, nutrition and adequate elimination, the human body will eliminate its own wastes and impurities by the process of autolysis (self-dissolving) if given the chance.

Again, most all disease is one disease - body pollution and poisoning. Yet, we accept incompetent medical training as perfectly normal even if the treatment proves fatal. All symptoms of disease, regardless of their label by medical science, are all diagnosed in the same senseless manner - ignorance of the cause.

Is the question ever asked, "Can the tissue or organ be restored to normalcy"? Why hasn't medical science discovered the reason the human body fails to function normally? Could it be that they are too busy in the mad pursuit of "miracle drugs"? Why is such a preponderance of surgery necessary today, when people can be taught how to live healthy lives to avoid chronic illness and needless operations?

Our medical profession, along with the medical-hospital-Big Pharma-health insurance industry complex, is the largest licensed pusher of drugs in the world. The wanton maiming and destruction of human life due to premeditated, irresponsible, over-prescribed poison drugs are unbelievable. Drugs have never cured the sick and the relief they are supposed to give is questionable and temporary. Millions are dead from the over-prescription of drugs by the legal drug pushers (doctors) and the side effects of the drugs are much worse than the symptoms they are supposed to relieve.

Aloha!

Be Your Own Doctor, Part I (Opinion)

Be Your Own Doctor, Part I (Opinion)
Regarding health, you are your own worst enemy. There are no miracle cures. There are no pills that will make you well overnight. Good health takes discipline. To be your own doctor you do not have to go to medical school. You just have to know your body and tune into it.

There is a way to live so as not to develop a diseased body by creating toxic conditions. There is also a way to detoxify your body of all toxic matter allowing Mother Nature's healing power to restore vibrant health.

It is well known that Mother Nature is uncompromising and a strict disciplinarian. This is especially true for those persons who will not make the effort to reform, revitalize, and renew their bodies through proper disciplinary actions of good health, which would guarantee perfect health.

Today, the procedures of biological hygiene (the science of natural healing) have been developed to the high level of being able to eliminate most disease from the human body. Mankind yearns for a cure. Little do they realize that each is his or her own answer and that there are no other cures. Human beings develop their own diseases. Therefore, they should be their own doctors.

The medical profession, from the beginning of time, has not brought about a single cure nor added, in any way, to the saving of the suffering of mankind in the elimination of the causes of innumerable agonizing diseases.

We slowly poison our bodies by putrefaction (excessive food poisoning) and then finally murder ourselves by involuntary suicide. Killing ourselves with toxemia is just as thorough as by a knife or a gun. It is a much more lingering, slow-suffering way to die and much more painful.

This involuntary suicide of human beings is being aided and abetted by a money-hungry, incompetent medical profession: A medical profession of which over 80% of its physicians are either guilty of overcharge, care little for their patients, are unknowledgeable about true healing, incompetent or fraudulent, perform unnecessary operations, cannot be reached for emergencies, treat people like cattle in production-line medical factories, are a party to needless infection, crippling and untold suffering, over-prescribe drugs and generally help cause diseases which they have taken an oath to cure.

How can we, the American public, be blamed for our confusion concerning health matters? Our self-imposed Gods, the American Medical Profession, have brainwashed us for ages into believing that "drugs and the knife" are next to godliness. They confuse, they bewilder, and they add insult to injury by performing the role of public executioner, all within the law.

How can doctors cure the human body when they know so little about it? Our physicians' trade is in relief, not in the elimination of disease. Treating symptoms endlessly with needles, x-rays, surgery, drugs and chemicals has never brought about a cure, let alone addressed a cause. The American people are getting more and more disenchanted with this kind of treatment and are beginning to demand that the cause of disease finally be addressed and eliminated.

Many medical doctors would be confounded by good health if they, by chance, ever met anyone who had it. Claiming a healing if a symptom "runs its course" is illusionary. In truth, the body healed itself by reducing its putrefaction and toxemia level to an endurable condition. Then, tolerable health returned temporarily until another crisis appears due to the fact that the toxemia had not been eliminated. It's an endless dilemma.

Stay tuned for Part 2

Environmental Health Perspectives: Exploring a Potential Link between BPA and Heart Disease

Environmental Health Perspectives: Exploring a Potential Link between BPA and Heart Disease

Most people in the United States are exposed to the plastic monomer bisphenol A (BPA), whether in plastic linings in food cans, containers made of hard plastic, or other plastics and foods containing BPA. Exposure to this suspected endocrine disruptor is illustrated by urine samples collected for NHANES (the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveys thousands of adults and children. A new analysis of NHANES data published 13 January 2010 in PLoS ONE adds more evidence for an association between heart disease and higher exposures to BPA, even at the relatively low levels seen in the general population.

David Melzer, an epidemiologist at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and his colleagues first looked at NHANES data collected from 2003 and 2004; their results, published in the 17 September 2008 issue of JAMA, were the first to show an association between higher levels of BPA metabolites in urine and adverse adult health outcomes, including heart disease. The current analysis considered NHANES data from 2005 and 2006. Although the BPA levels in urine samples from this new group of people were lower by almost a third, the association remained between coronary heart disease and higher urinary BPA.

While this study may help inform future research, such cross-sectional studies “should not be used to demonstrate that a particular chemical can cause a particular effect,” said Steven G. Hentges of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group of the American Chemistry Council in a 13 January 2010 press release. And indeed, Melzer and his colleagues emphasize that because this study is cross-sectional—a snapshot in time instead of a long-term observational investigation—they cannot say whether BPA contributes to heart disease or if heart disease changes the exposure to or metabolism of BPA in adults. “What would really help is if industry and regulators could support independent studies [to examine] whether high BPA levels are present before any disease started,” Melzer says.

“Chasing human [data] is the way forward,” says Richard Sharpe, an endocrinologist from The Queen’s Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh who did not participate in the research. NHANES provides a robust data set, he says, and the repeatability of the association with a second survey group is positive. However, that replication is somewhat incomplete because not all of the associations found with BPA in the first study were found in the second.

“The more logical interpretation of the results as they stand at the moment is that they are looking at two variables that are associated with something else,” Sharpe says. Diet, for instance, is a major contributor to heart disease in the United States and also a major source of BPA exposure. “We should remember that heart disease develops over a long period of time,” Sharpe says, “so if BPA is involved causally, a cross-sectional study such as this [PLoS ONE report] cannot show this.”

Scott Belcher, a scientist at the University of Cincinnati, says the association in humans is “not super surprising in light of our animal studies and because we already know estrogens are related to various cardiovascular end points.” Belcher’s team reported at the June 2009 Endocrine Society annual meeting that BPA exposure in vitro in muscle cells and in whole hearts from female rodents leads to arrhythmias, and they recently received American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds from the NIEHS to conduct further research on BPA in mice. Meanwhile, pending the release of an updated toxicology review for BPA, the Food and Drug Administration announced in January 2010 it is “taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure to BPA in the food supply.”

Environmental Health Perspectives: Drugs in the Environment: Do Pharmaceutical Take-Back Programs Make a Difference?

Environmental Health Perspectives: Drugs in the Environment: Do Pharmaceutical Take-Back Programs Make a Difference?

Drugs in the Environment: Do Pharmaceutical Take-Back Programs Make a Difference?

Naomi Lubick

Naomi Lubick is a freelance science writer based in Zürich, Switzerland, and Folsom, CA. She has written for Environmental Science & Technology, Nature, and Earth.

Citation: Lubick N 2010. Drugs in the Environment: Do Pharmaceutical Take-Back Programs Make a Difference? Environ Health Perspect 118:a210-a214. doi:10.1289/ehp.118-a210

Online: 01 May 2010

The state of Maine experimented with drugs last year. The state had already tested several methods
for collecting unused pharmaceuticals, with varying degrees of success. After tracking surprisingly high concentrations of pharmaceuticals in landfill leachate —raising the potential for eventual ground and surface water contamination—the state decided to pursue a new tool to keep drugs out of the waste stream. Maine wanted to establish statewide collection programs, mandated 
by legislation and paid for by manufacturers, that would intercept unwanted pharmaceutical products before they got to the trash.

Although the state legislation bogged down earlier this year, other states have introduced bills similar to Maine’s, with some success. Meanwhile, Europe and Canada have had systems for pharmaceutical take-back programs in place for a decade or so. At the same time, an increasing number of reports from across the world have tracked active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in surface waters and even tap water, leading environmental scientists and water utilities to look for ways to limit the amount of drugs entering the environment.

The bulk of human pharmaceuticals found in waterways most likely got there by way of sewage. Taking unused pharmaceuticals out of landfills may make only a small difference in the concentrations of APIs found in water, say critics and supporters alike of such programs. But take-back programs may help prevent leftover pharmaceuticals from being misused. For that reason and others, utilities and local governments are moving forward with a variety of pharmaceutical take-back efforts in the absence of regulations—or data indicating such programs actually work.

Digging into the Trash Top

The most damning evidence yet of human drugs’ impacts on wildlife comes from studies of fish. A study by Karen Kidd et al., in the 22 May 2007 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed the collapse of a population of fish in an isolated lake spiked with relatively high levels of the synthetic estrogen 17α-ethinylestradiol. Other studies on aquatic populations in a waste-impacted stream in Boulder, Colorado, showed reproductive effects from estrogenic wastewater effluent, according to Alan M. Vajda et al., writing in the 1 May 2008 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

Save a Flush

Only certain drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be flushed down the toilet or drain. These include drugs deemed to be "especially harmful to a child, pet, or anyone else if taken accidentally," according to the agency’s "Information for Consumers (Drugs)" webpage. Once APIs reach the bacteria that clean up wastewater in treatment plants, drugs may degrade into daughter compounds that may be more or less toxic than the parent drug, or they may even return to their original forms. Some will flush out with treated effluent into streams, and some will be captured in biosolids—the sludge left over after water treatment—that might end up incinerated, spread over agricultural lands, or placed in landfills. A study by Dana Kolpin and colleagues in the 15 March 2008 issue of Environmental Science & Technology found that earthworms from fields where biosolids had been spread as fertilizer had measurable amounts of pharmaceuticals in their bodies. Pharmaceuticals flushed into septic systems may pose even more of a threat to waterways than those put into municiple systems, according to some of the few studies on the topic. Conversely, study findings published in the February 2010 issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry suggest that septic tanks may remove organic contaminants as effectively as wastewater treatment plants, although there are no data yet on specific drugs.

© Images.com/Corbis

Aside from any environmental implications, discarded pharmaceuticals pose the threat of misuse. “People will go to great lengths to reclaim a drug,” says Christian Daughton of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He cites reports of “pee labs,” where a dealer might reclaim methamphetamine from a user’s urine and reconstitute it for resale. But it’s not only drug users who go through the garbage for pharmaceuticals, says Ann Pistell, an environmental specialist at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP): “It’s accidental poisonings by children, pets, or wildlife who pluck them out.”

In January 2010, the Maine DEP measured the concentrations of drugs in samples of leachate collected at three landfills, selected because they were receiving only household waste and not biosolids that might contain human-excreted drugs. DEP scientists were surprised to find what could amount to yearly leachate emissions of hundreds of pounds of APIs from over-the-counter and prescription drugs. “The fact that we found pharmaceuticals wasn’t a huge surprise, but the high levels were,” says Pistell. The pain reliever acetaminophen, for example, was present in samples from one landfill at concentrations of 117,000 ng/L, the highest level of any drug measured in the study.

The prescription antibiotic ciprofloxacin was present at concentrations of 269 ng/L, and lab tests even found cocaine—at 57 ng/L—in one landfill, according to the DEP’s unpublished findings. Other drugs found in all three landfills included low concentrations of estrone (from hormone replacement therapy), albuterol (an asthma drug), and the antibiotic penicillin in the range of tens to hundreds parts per billion.

The findings led the DEP to decide that disposing of unused pharmaceutical products in landfills—the current recommendation of U.S. industry and government to consumers wanting to clean out their medicine cabinets—is not a prudent or sustainable method of disposal.

According to the SMARxT Disposal™ partnership, however, landfills are fine for disposal of pharmaceuticals. This partnership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the American Pharmacists Association, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America recommends that medications be crushed and/or dissolved, mixed with kitty litter or other unappealing material (to discourage consumption), then enclosed in a container or sealable baggie before disposal in the trash. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, in its 2009 “Proper Disposal of Prescription Drugs” factsheet, agrees with this advice where take-back programs are not available. Unused controlled drugs collected by law enforcement typically are incinerated—considered the most effective way to destroy APIs—through licensed medical waste collectors.

Susan Boehme, who studies contaminated coastal sediments with the Illinois–Indiana Sea Grant program, says life-cycle analyses of drug disposal methods are not yet complete. As someone who spends a lot of time helping communities set up and operate pharmaceutical take-back programs, Boehme says she cautions stakeholders that the impacts of a local take-back program on pollution prevention often will be unclear and that such programs are “definitely a precautionary approach.”

Few studies have been conducted on pharmaceuticals in landfills and leachate, says Dana Kolpin of the U.S. Geological Survey, lead author of a landmark paper published 15 March 2002 in Environmental Science & Technology that showed the widespread presence of pharmaceuticals in U.S. surface waters. Kolpin and his colleagues previously examined pharmaceuticals present in groundwater leachate plumes, and the team currently is attempting to organize a national survey of landfill leachate to better understand the levels of pharmaceuticals that may be present. Many landfill operations actually collect leachate for further treatment at a wastewater treatment plant, which may make this a slower pathway for drugs to travel into the environment, Kolpin says, “but it’s still a potential pathway.”

Kolpin adds, “At some point, somebody has to look and find the mass balance, so to speak.” How much of the pharmaceuticals in the environment, whether excreted or unused, come from residential waste versus hospitals versus farms? What sources are the biggest contributors? Not many answers exist to these questions at the moment, most researchers say.

Filling in the Blanks Top

Currently, says Ilene Ruhoy of Touro University Nevada, take-back programs are “not standardized in any way.” Data collection from people turning in drugs may differ from event to event, as might methods used to classify them by type and measure the amount of drugs collected—for example, whether that amount reflects the mass of the medication in its packaging, the mass of the complete formulated product (APIs plus excipients), or the mass of just the APIs. These differences make extrapolating data from an event to figure out its impact “really complicated,” she says, without even adding the complexities of the potential ecological effects of each drug.

Duane Huggett of the University of North Texas hopes to fill in some of the blanks on the exact benefits of take-back programs. For the City of Denton’s collection in late April 2010, Huggett and his colleagues established a protocol for collecting drugs while logging statistically valid data for later evaluation. They hope to repeat this pilot program at future events across the United States.

As more states roll out take-back legislation and programs, the country could end up with 50 different state programs, Huggett says, and standardization, at least in data collection, would certainly help in assessing the impacts of these programs, if not their establishment and implementation. Moreover, without regulation, some of these programs may not even be legal, according to Jen Jackson of East Bay Municipal Utility District, the public utility serving San Francisco’s East Bay. For example, she says, until California set up its own guidance for water utilities and pharmacies to collect unused pharmaceuticals, the state’s many take-back programs were operating in a legal gray zone.

That’s in large part because pharmaceutical take-back programs are subject to the same rules that are meant to keep controlled substances from reentering the supply chain either legally or illegally: under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration requires controlled substances to be turned in to the proper law enforcement officials. Any collection program must be carefully monitored by law enforcement, Jackson says, so nothing is diverted from a collection box, for example. The additional monitoring needed for these events can increase event expenses.

Jackson says pharmacies must be very careful to involve as few hands as possible in take-back programs. For instance, in California the public can deposit unused pharmaceuticals in one-way bins with two-key systems. Collections of full bins might take place with a licensed medical waste hauler and a pharmacist present as witnesses to ensure drugs in high demand on the street (such as the neurostimulant Ritalin and the analgesic Vicodin) are not diverted from their path to destruction.

LD 821, the Maine bill introduced in March 2009 by Representative Anne Perry, would have required industry to assist in establishing take-back programs for unused pharmaceuticals in that state. The bill called for manufacturers to demonstrate to the Maine DEP that they were taking part in or running their own take-back programs, with proper disposal of their products through hazardous waste incinerators. The bill also called for pharmacies to provide prepaid envelopes so customers could mail unused pharmaceuticals back to the manufacturer. The bill passed Maine’s House of Representatives by a wide margin but was tabled in the state Senate in March 2010.

In contrast to the United States, Europe has widespread standardized take-back programs. In the 2010 report Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Results of an EEA Workshop, the European Environment Agency (EEA) stated most countries there collect unused drugs separately from household waste, usually at pharmacies (a handful also have separate collection sites alongside pharmacies). But even in Europe, not all unused pharmaceuticals are diverted from the waste stream. A survey from Germany’s Management Strategies for Pharmaceutical Residues in Drinking Water (start) research program showed that consumers discarded 23% of liquid pharmaceuticals prescribed and 7% of tablets. While some went into household trash, the proportion that went down the drain amounted to 364 tons of APIs flushed away every year. Only about a third of the population surveyed by the start program reported always returning their drugs to a pharmacy.

End of the Line Top

Daughton and Ruhoy have developed a methodology that could be used to quantify unused pharmaceuticals that end up in the waste stream in the United States, using coroners’ records and other data sources. In the 15 December 2007 issue of Science of the Total Environment, they note that medical investigators from coroners’ offices routinely search decedents’ homes for drugs in case they played a role in a death, and the coroner often maintains detailed records of the pharmaceuticals found and their method of disposal. Creating a unified network of coroners’ databases from around the country could yield valuable insight into the types and amounts of pharmaceuticals consumers tend to accumulate.

Researchers have also examined how to diminish environmental impacts of pharmaceuticals using the principles of green chemistry: Ruhoy says more manufacturers have found ways to use less water or solvents and thereby lessen the environmental impacts of pharmaceutical production. Still, few have rolled out products that might easily biodegrade in the environment. In the May 2003 issue of EHP, Daughton suggested expanding the use of “optically pure chiral drugs” to reduce by half—or sometimes more—the amount of API required in a medication. A chiral (or “handed”) molecule may have mirror-image configurations that are not quite identical; one form may be more effective by fitting into certain receptors, whereas another may be ineffective or even harmful because of its different form. Focusing on the optimal configuration of a molecule selects for materials that can be used more efficiently by the human body while cutting down on pharmaceutical bulk.

Another possibility for reducing the impact of APIs in the environment involves advising medical professionals about drugs that are less environmentally harmful. In Sweden the pharmaceutical industry has assisted the government in putting together a database of the possible environmental effects of various medications. A patient could select a less environmentally persistent painkiller, for example, by avoiding off-label use of the anticonvulsant carbamazepine. Europe is currently examining how to expand this Swedish Environmental Classification of Pharmaceuticals database to the international level.

Daughton points out that reduced usage, lower dosages for personalized medicines tailored to an individual’s genome, and other approaches could cut down on human excretion of drugs to the environment—and the need to dispose of unused pharmaceuticals—while perhaps achieving better health care outcomes. “One of the downsides of focusing on drug disposal is that it serves to distract from the issues that could potentially have much more impact on the occurrence of APIs in the environment,” he comments. “This is especially true given that we don’t even know the relative contributions of APIs in the environment that result from disposal versus intended usage.”

Although the question of whether pharmaceutical take-back programs make a difference does not yet have a clear answer, Kolpin remains optimistic about the possibilities for keeping pharmaceuticals out of the environment, observing that “more and more people [are] working on the issue . . . and providing results that advance the science.” He says that although it may be unrealistic to eliminate every contaminant from waste, perhaps researchers and regulators could focus on the “bad actors,” those compounds known to be the most common or most harmful. Some argue that consumers could have the most impact on the amount of pharmaceuticals in the environment, for example in choosing to buy fewer or “greener” pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, Maine’s LD 821 bill may yet see another day. Pistell says the bill will be reintroduced in January 2011 by a new sponsor, and that it will go to a natural resources committee—which is more familiar with product stewardship issues—instead of one on public health. The state already has refined the bill after hearing legislators’ concerns, according to Pistell, who explains, “lots of bills take several years to get through.” She adds, “Those who have greatest influence over a product—usually manufacturers—certainly should have a role in dealing responsibly with a product at the end of its life.”

For More Information Top

National Programs and Institutes (a list of take-back programs and other resources in various states)—Teleosis Institute

The Drug Take-Back Network News (recent news about drug take-back issues)—Product Stewardship Institute

Swedish Environmental Classification of Pharmaceuticals—Swedish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Ayurveda and Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is often referred to as a "miracle plant" in Ayurveda.  Aloe Vera is a succulent, and it's leaves contain a liquid that is made up of 96% water and the rest is a combination of amazing healing ingredients like Vitamins A, B, C, E, calcium, amino acids and enzymes.  The Aloe Vera gel can be applied to the skin to help heal cuts, insects ites, bruises, and skin conditions such as eczema and poison ivy.  Aloe Vera has both antibacterial and antifungal properties.  It can help the skin manufacture collagen, and it is absorbed into the skin four times faster than water making it extremely moisturizing.  Aloe Vera can also be taken internally.  Drinking Aloe Vera juice aids digestion and the absorption of nutrients.  It can also helps to control blood sugar, increase energy, improve heart and liver health and boost the immune system.  Children under the age of five and women who are pregnant should not take Aloe Vera internally.

Hundred Year Lie, Organic Food, Alternative Medicine, Natural Products

Hundred Year Lie, Organic Food, Alternative Medicine, Natural Products:

"I began learning how chemically toxic we each have become, and how, as a result of the body burden of chemicals we are constantly absorbing, the reproductive future of our entire species is now imperiled.

* Why are studies showing that 12% of American couples are unable to conceive?
* Why are studies showing that the number of children being born with both male and female sex organs tripled in the last decade?
* Why is the incidence of testicular cancer in 2000 four times higher than 1950?
* Why are more and more men seeking breast-reduction surgery as a result of drinking tap water?
* Why is the U.S. spending more than twice as much on health care than any other industrialized nation?"

The truth? People are reversing chronic disease by quitting the Synthetics Belief System!
	Battling terminal brain tumors and the breakdown of her body due to chronic disease, Bonnie Lovett stunned the National Institute of Health and experienced complete disease regression that left her with no physical deformities. Her secret? Acting on the knowledge that the Synthetics belief System was ruining her life.

The Water Cure: An interview with Dr. Batmanghelidj page 0

The Water Cure: An interview with Dr. Batmanghelidj page 0: "Physicians rarely promote the curative properties of H2O, but Dr. Batmanghelidj, M.D. has studied water's effect on the human body and has found it to be one of the best pain relievers and preventative therapies in existence. I was one of the last people to interview the late Dr. Batmanghelidj, and I listened in awe as he shared his research and stories about 'The Healing Power of Water.'

In a fascinating one-hour phone conversation, Dr. B. shares:

• Which common ailments and 'diseases' are actually caused by dehydration

• Why many doctors use water-regulating antihistamines to alleviate pain

• How Dr. Batmanghelidj unintentionally discovered water's healing properties

• Why most people are chronically dehydrated and suffer from symptoms of dehydration that are labeled 'diseases'

• Which ingredients in soft drinks deplete the body's water reserves

• Why thirst is not a reliable indicator of dehydration

• Why the body produces cholesterol and how water keeps it in balance

• Why Dr. Batmanghelidj believes the public is being mislead about AIDS

• How dehydration impairs mental functioning

• Why some organizations want to withhold alternative health information from the public

• How lack of water causes depression

• Why popular beverages are no substitute for water

• How dehydration causes the vascular system to constrict, leading to hypertension

• How to recognize signs that your body is starting to dehydrate

• Why restaurants push you to drink disease-promoting soft drinks

• Why and how water effectively treats pain and inflammation"

Fw: The amazing cucumber..

This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of their "Spotlight on the Home" series that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.


1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber.  Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower?  Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds?  Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long.  The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool?  Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.  Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache?  Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explorers for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes?  Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge?  Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa?  Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finished a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints?  Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel?  Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but it won't leave streaks and won't harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake?  Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

Pure Water On Tap | Water Filters, Water Chillers, Sales & Service - Niddrie & Vermont

Pure Water On Tap | Water Filters, Water Chillers, Sales & Service - Niddrie & Vermont: "Health Alert

'There is a clear pattern between consumption of chlorinated water and rectal and bladder cancer. It is projected that by the year 2015 the combined death rate from bladder, rectal and pancreatic cancer will exceed the lung cancer death rates, due to carcinogens in water and food.'

Not Fit For Human Consumption, New Scientist, 18 Sep 86"

Fw: Take advantage of your extra hour of sunlight ==> Highlight added ;-)

Trouble reading this email? Click here.

Dear Friend, Did you know that America's kids spend only four to seven minutes outside per day?  In fact, by the time most children go to kindergarten, they have spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a television – enough time to earn a college degree! This weekend, you can help reverse these worrisome trends simply by using your extra hour of sunlight to go outside! Click here for a list of ways you and your kids can unplug this weekend. Then, be sure to take the Be Out There Pledge indicating that you will make outdoor play a healthy habit for your kids. It will take less than a minute—and you'll receive fun tips and interactive tools to inspire you and your family to Be Out There all year long! Sincerely, Rebecca Garland Executive Director, Be Out There National Wildlife Federation www.beoutthere.org     "Sixty minutes of daily unstructured free play is essential to children's physical and mental health." ~American Academy of Pediatrics, 2008     National Wildlife Federation's Be Out There™ movement is connecting American families to the outdoors to raise happier, healthier children with a life-long love of nature.         © 2010 National Wildlife Federation. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Unsubscribe | www.nwf.org

Complete Anti-Aging Package by Dr. Mercola

Why Do So Many Skin Care Products Use These Potentially Hazardous Ingredients?

Simple answer: because they’re cheap, readily available, and easy to dilute.

Are they in the products you currently use? It’s time to check. Go grab your containers of skin care products and check them against the following …

Ingredient	Use	Dangers
Parabens	Heavily used preservatives in the cosmetic industry; used in an estimated 13,200 cosmetic and skin care products.	Studies implicate their connection with cancer because their hormone-disrupting qualities mimic estrogen and could disrupt your body’s endocrine system.
Mineral Oil, Paraffin, and Petrolatum		These petroleum products coat the skin like plastic – clogging pores and creating a build-up of toxins. They can slow cellular development, creating earlier signs of aging. They’re implicated as a suspected cause of cancer. Plus, they can disrupt hormonal activity. When you think about black oil pumped from deep underground, ask yourself why you’d want to put that kind of stuff on your skin…
Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS), also known as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)	Found in over 90% of personal care products! They break down your skin’s moisture barrier, potentially leading to dry skin with premature aging. And because they easily penetrate your skin, they can allow other chemicals easy access.	SLS combined with other chemicals may become a "nitrosamine" – a potent carcinogen.
Acrylamide	Found in many facial creams.	Linked to mammary tumors.
Propylene glycol	Common cosmetic moisturizer and carrier for fragrance oils.	May cause dermatitis and skin irritation. May inhibit skin cell growth. Linked to kidney and liver problems.
Phenol carbolic acid	Found in many lotions and skin creams.	Can cause circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma, and even death from respiratory failure.
Dioxane	Hidden in ingredients such as PEG, polysorbates, laureth, ethoxylated alcohols. Very common in personal care products.	These chemicals are often contaminated with high concentrations of highly volatile 1,4-dioxane that’s easily absorbed through the skin. Its carcinogenicity was first reported in 1965, and later confirmed in studies including one from the National Cancer Institute in 1978. Nasal passages are considered extremely vulnerable, making it, in my opinion, a really bad idea to use these things on your face.
Toluene	May be very poisonous! Made from petroleum and coal tar… found in most synthetic fragrances.	Chronic exposure linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage…May affect a developing fetus.

Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes: Scientific American Podcast

Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes: Scientific American Podcast: "Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes
A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by May Berenbaum and colleagues finds that bee colony collapse disorder seems to be related to bees' ribosomes breaking down, which keeps them from making the proteins they need to deal with stress and disease. Steve Mirsky reports"

Who’s Really Guarding Your Water Supply?

Who’s Really Guarding Your Water Supply?

If you are enlightened and aware of the dangers and the many reasons to avoid fluoride in all its forms, you probably wonder how on earth fluoride could ever be approved and used for preventive health.

The issue of fluoride for health truly boggles the mind in its absurdity.

The video above contains my full-length interview with Dr. Bill Osmunson, a dentist who has become an expert on, and advocate against, fluoride. If you prefer to read the interview in its entirety, you can download the transcript by clicking the on the source link below.

Normally, these expert interviews are only sent to my Inner Circle members. However, I believe this fluoride issue is so critically important, I’ve decided to share the entire interview with everyone, for free.

Like this vital interview with Dr. Osmunson, each of my interviews with world-renowned health experts is jam-packed with valuable information that you’d have to search for hours to find on your own. Much of this knowledge is simply not that easy to happen upon.

So, if you want special monthly savings, 14 exclusive bonuses, and other great benefits, simply sign up for the Mercola Inner Circle membership now to get my one-on-one interview with a renowned expert sent to you each and every month -- automatically.

Each CD contains priceless information that can help you stay (or get) healthier, skip time-consuming trips to the doctor, and help you avoid pain and suffering that you can’t even begin to put a price tag on.

Your membership offers the risk-free convenience of routinely receiving your CD for better healthy via a special interview, plus a bonus DVD containing carefully selected segments of our talk along with a special edition newsletter, each and every month – all without you lifting a finger. What could be easier? It's risk-free, so what's to lose?

To maximize your time, and your health, hop right over to the Mercola Inner Circle signup page for your very own Inner Circle membership.

And now, for the first time ever, I'm making standalone copies of every expert interview I've ever done available to non-Inner Circle members. That’s right… you no longer need to be an Inner Circle member to get access to these exclusive interviews.

Just pick and choose your own most relevant topics from the wide variety of interview subjects. We'll deliver high-quality CDs of just the interviews you choose -- without any commitment whatsoever -- right to your doorstep!

You’ll also get the additional materials that were part of that month's volume of Inner Circle membership: a limited edition print newsletter of the top articles for the month and a DVD containing the month's top health videos. Choose your expert interviews now and Take Control of Your Health!

But hurry and get your interviews while they’re still available. Each month's volume had a limited run. So once we run out of them, they're gone forever!

Sources:

A Special Interview With Dr. Bill Osmunson (Transcript)

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

So, with all the evidence against fluoride, how did water fluoridation come about?

The key to understanding how fluoride was introduced into the public health system is to understand how most commercial fluoride is created.

So sit back into your most comfortable chair and let me enlighten you on the fraud, corruption and misrepresentation that has allowed fluoride to become common in most municipal water supplies, and how nearly every health care professional is convinced that it is a major public health benefit.

This is a classic example of how lies and deceptions are fostered on you and your family, at your health expense, so some large corporation can ultimately benefit.

How Commercial Greed Spawned a Hidden Health Disaster

It is first important to understand that most all fluoride is actually a toxic waste product of aluminum- and steel manufacturing. It is a HIGHLY toxic waste product.

When fluoride is produced it is so reactive it can eat through steel, glass, iron, aluminum, and most other substances. It rivals mercury for being one of the most poisonous substances on the planet.

The sordid beginning of poisoning the public water supply with fluoride began with Dr. Gerald Cox nearly 80 years ago.

Around 1930 Dr. Cox proposed that fluoride in small amounts of 1 part per million (ppm) could prevent dental cavities. He made his recommendations without any studies, human or otherwise, to suggest it would be safe or effective.

Interestingly, Dr. Cox was on the staff of the Mellon Institute, and the Mellon family owned the Alcoa aluminum company.

But that’s not all.

Andrew Mellon, the founder of Alcoa, was also the Treasury Secretary, and in 1930 the US Department of Public Health was under the direct control of the Treasury Secretary.

Did these ties between the aluminum industry and the Department of Public Health influence the chain of events that led to water fluoridation?

Absolutely!

Remember, the most dangerous and expensive waste product in the production of aluminum is fluoride. Because it is corrosive and toxic, it was extremely expensive to dispose of safely and was costing Alcoa millions of dollars in lost profits every year. By finding a “benefit” in this toxic byproduct, the industry was able to not only save money, but actually make money from their toxic waste!

AMA is on the Record Stating Fluoride is a Poison

Amazingly, more than 13 years later, in 1943, the American Medical Association stated that fluoride was a powerful protoplasmic poison, and because of its widespread occurrence in nature, toxic accumulation could be a major problem if the water supplies were fluoridated.

The following year the American Dental Association stated the potential for harm from fluoridation far outweighed any public good, and they also noted that fluoride in concentrations as low as 1 PPM could cause osteosclerois, spondylysis, osteoporosis, and goiter.

Despite these warnings, Dr. Cox convinced Dr. Frisch, a Wisconsin dentist, to actively promote fluoridation of the water supply. According to historians, Frisch led the charge with the frenzy of a religious zealot and turned it into a political crusade.

Water Fluoridation -- One of the Most Successful PR Campaigns in U.S. History

In 1944 Alcoa hired a prominent attorney, Oscar Ewing, at an annual salary of $750,000 even though they were not facing any major litigation. A few months after being hired he left the company to accept a job as Federal Security Administrator that put him in charge of the US Public Health Service. Not surprisingly, very shortly after that Ewing launched a major national campaign to fluoridate the water supplies.

The fluoridation project was a massive undertaking and Ewing spared no expense to hire the absolute best marketing minds on the planet. He hired the best PR firm money could buy at the time, Edward, L. Benays, who was Freud’s cousin and had a notorious reputation as the original spin doctor.

Opponents to fluoridation were carefully labeled by the masterminds of Alcoa’s PR group as loonies and right wing extremists who saw fluoridation as a communist plot.

Despite the dire warnings by the AMA and ADA, and not a single shred of evidence that fluoride was safe or effective, fluoride was initiated into the water supply in an experiment in Michigan in 1945. But even before the Michigan study was complete there was a complete reversal in the ADA and AMA who both suddenly decided to endorse widespread fluoridation.

At that time any dentists that dissented from the new views of the ADA were either censored or lost their ADA membership as the dental societies were also controlled by grants from the US Department of Public Health.

Eventually the Michigan study was completed and used to prove that fluoridation helped prevent cavities, but the study had terrible controls, and never took into account that cavities were being reduced all across the country because of better hygiene and nutrition.

Learn More About the Dangers of Fluoride

I urge you to listen to my interview with Dr. Osmunson, where he discusses what he’s learned about the many toxic dangers of fluoride.

Related Links:

Fluroide Index Page

The Fluoride Controversy

Scientific American Has Second Thoughts About Fluoride