NY hospitals agree to stop flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain and polluting watershed
Five health care facilities have signed an agreement with the New York Attorney General's Office to settle charges that they polluted the state's watersheds by dumping pharmaceutical products down sinks and toilets.
In 2008, and Associated Press investigation revealed that the drinking water consumed by more than one-sixth of the U.S. population is contaminated with trace (but potentially biologically active) amounts of over-the-counter and prescription drugs. While some of these chemicals enter sewage systems after being excreted by people taking the drugs, many of them were traced back to a common practice in hospitals and other health-care facilities: disposing of unused pharmaceuticals by flushing them down sinks or toilets.
After state tests of New York watersheds revealed widespread pharmaceutical contamination, the Attorney General's Office launched an investigation. Eventually, five facilities -- Putnam Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Holmes in Putnam County, and O'Connor Hospital, Countryside Care Center, Margaretville Memorial Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center in Delaware County -- were charged with numerous federal and state violations, including failure to properly track, label, store and dispose of drugs. The hospitals and nursing homes were found to have improperly dumped antibiotics, antidepressants, hormones, painkillers and other pharmaceutical products directly into the state water supply.
The watersheds contaminated supply water to New York City's eight million residents, as well as another one million people in several counties to the north.
Each facility will pay a fine of between $3,500 and $12,500. Although state law does not prohibit the dumping of all pharmaceuticals down the drain -- only some -- the facilities have agreed to end the practice completely.
Ten other health care facilities in the state are also being investigated for watershed pollution through drug dumping. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo called the practice "an emerging threat."
The Environmental Protection Agency has classified pharmaceutical products as "contaminants of growing concern."
Sources for this story include: www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticl....
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Food Holds the Ultimate Leverage, Part II (Opinion)
Food Holds the Ultimate Leverage, Part II (Opinion)
In Part 1 we learned that controlling the food supply equates to having enormous leverage over the masses. During the Great Depression days, Americans were kept alive because of their ties to the rural farming communities. Families could grow food or rely upon their relatives to help sustain them. But in this world where we are clueless about where our food comes from or how to produce it, we have become extremely vulnerable. And, as food prices rise many will have little choice other that to shift to a diet of cheap, fatty, mass-produced foods loaded with sugar, salt, and synthetic chemicals, already a staple of the nation's poor.
Junk food, already a major contributor to obesity, diabetes and heart disease, is often the only food available to those living in the inner cities because decent supermarkets and decent foods are beyond their reach both geographically and financially. And as this blight continues and our economy deteriorates even more, the middle class will soon join their ranks.
When you walk down the street, look at people. What you will see are people wasting their bodies just like we waste our land. You will see bodies that are fat, weak, unhappy, sickly and gross - basically, the cash crop for the manufacturers of the pharmaceuticals. Our bodies have become nothing more than a shipping carton used to transport our brains and our few employable muscles back and forth to work.
The people will eat what the corporations decide what they should eat. They will become detached from what really provides life; they will become the slaves of the producers, and mindless zombies. The concept of the new model farms is to turn us all into machines. How can you mechanize production without mechanizing consumption?
So, the first step is to have the communities take back local food production and in the process, reclaim our lives which have been subjugated by corporate culture and brainwashing. We need to go back to the values that sustain a community. We need to re-connect with nature and life and to realize that our existence relies upon our relationship with God and each other. We need to realize that we all have the same Father making us all brothers and sisters in the truest sense of the words. It is this realization that will save us.
If not, then we will continue in an economy that focuses on technology, weapons, bling, and drugs. We will continue to be deprived of clothing, food, shelter and water. We will continue to fight wars just to acquire resources that we never owned anyway. If we adopt the consciousness that we are caretakers and not owners why would there be a need for war? The resources were here long before we got here and will be here long after we are gone. That makes God the true owner.
So, if a nation has a resource we don't have and we have a resource they don't have and we trade, this will bring harmony, peace and abundance and no need for wars. The problem is that no one can exploit anyone for money in a culture like this. The horror!
Aloha
In Part 1 we learned that controlling the food supply equates to having enormous leverage over the masses. During the Great Depression days, Americans were kept alive because of their ties to the rural farming communities. Families could grow food or rely upon their relatives to help sustain them. But in this world where we are clueless about where our food comes from or how to produce it, we have become extremely vulnerable. And, as food prices rise many will have little choice other that to shift to a diet of cheap, fatty, mass-produced foods loaded with sugar, salt, and synthetic chemicals, already a staple of the nation's poor.
Junk food, already a major contributor to obesity, diabetes and heart disease, is often the only food available to those living in the inner cities because decent supermarkets and decent foods are beyond their reach both geographically and financially. And as this blight continues and our economy deteriorates even more, the middle class will soon join their ranks.
When you walk down the street, look at people. What you will see are people wasting their bodies just like we waste our land. You will see bodies that are fat, weak, unhappy, sickly and gross - basically, the cash crop for the manufacturers of the pharmaceuticals. Our bodies have become nothing more than a shipping carton used to transport our brains and our few employable muscles back and forth to work.
The people will eat what the corporations decide what they should eat. They will become detached from what really provides life; they will become the slaves of the producers, and mindless zombies. The concept of the new model farms is to turn us all into machines. How can you mechanize production without mechanizing consumption?
So, the first step is to have the communities take back local food production and in the process, reclaim our lives which have been subjugated by corporate culture and brainwashing. We need to go back to the values that sustain a community. We need to re-connect with nature and life and to realize that our existence relies upon our relationship with God and each other. We need to realize that we all have the same Father making us all brothers and sisters in the truest sense of the words. It is this realization that will save us.
If not, then we will continue in an economy that focuses on technology, weapons, bling, and drugs. We will continue to be deprived of clothing, food, shelter and water. We will continue to fight wars just to acquire resources that we never owned anyway. If we adopt the consciousness that we are caretakers and not owners why would there be a need for war? The resources were here long before we got here and will be here long after we are gone. That makes God the true owner.
So, if a nation has a resource we don't have and we have a resource they don't have and we trade, this will bring harmony, peace and abundance and no need for wars. The problem is that no one can exploit anyone for money in a culture like this. The horror!
Aloha
Food Holds the Ultimate Leverage, Part I (Opinion)
Food Holds the Ultimate Leverage, Part I (Opinion)
He who controls the food supply can and will have leverage and control over the people. If we take back our agriculture and can buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of the corporations that control a food system that is fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse just like our financial system.
If we continue to allow the corporations to decide what we eat and how food is raised, harvested and distributed, then we will bear the burden of high prices and shortages and become dependent on cheap, mass produced food loaded with sugar, fat and salt. We will open the door to more obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Already the effects of climate change, droughts and rising fossil fuel costs have wreaked havoc on the environments of millions. One sixth of the world's population, or approximately one billion people, subsist on less than $1 per day. And out of this number, about 160 million people get by on less than 50 cents a day. How would you like to be in a situation where 60% of your income was spent on food?
Food riots have brought about food rationing; 33 million Americans ( one in nine) are on food stamps and in 20 states, as many as one in eight are on food stamps. With an average monthly food stamp benefit of $113.87 per person, many, many people are without adequate food. Even more depressing is the fact that Congress allocated $54 billion for food stamps in the current fiscal year, up from $39 billion, but in the new fiscal year, costs are estimated at $60 billion.
The large factory farms have wiped out the small farmers. Our soil has been poisoned with enormous quantities of pesticides, and contaminated animals in overcrowded stockyards are fed a flowing and endless supply of antibiotics, steroids, and growth hormones. The garbage that has been pumped into the water systems has caused algae build up and mass dying of fish in the rivers and streams.
Because of the blight of changing weather patterns and chemical pollution, crop yields in the Northeast are rapidly becoming less and less. And the Food Modernization Act, another gift from the Washington politicians that serve the big corporations and not the people, means that the small farms will soon be a thing of the past.
The entire economy built around food is unsafe and unethical and it is the food that is the greatest place for communities to start taking back power. Look at reality. The national food system is collapsing. The Central Valley of California produces more than 50% of what we eat. So what happens when gasoline hits $5 a gallon or a heavy drought blankets the cropland? Chaos happens! This unstable system of food production must be replaced with small, diverse sources that will provide a greater food security.
There was a study done by Cornell University to determine whether or not New York state could feed itself. What they found was even if all agricultural land was used and food distribution was optimized to minimize the total distance that the food needed to travel, New York state could only meet 34% of their total food needs.
What's even worse is that New York City, that relied upon New Jersey for food supplies, now has to face the fact that the, if you will pardon the expression, "Garden State" has had their farms give way to housing developments. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the upstate farming communities in New York have been gutted by industrial farming.
Stay tuned for Part 2
He who controls the food supply can and will have leverage and control over the people. If we take back our agriculture and can buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of the corporations that control a food system that is fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse just like our financial system.
If we continue to allow the corporations to decide what we eat and how food is raised, harvested and distributed, then we will bear the burden of high prices and shortages and become dependent on cheap, mass produced food loaded with sugar, fat and salt. We will open the door to more obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Already the effects of climate change, droughts and rising fossil fuel costs have wreaked havoc on the environments of millions. One sixth of the world's population, or approximately one billion people, subsist on less than $1 per day. And out of this number, about 160 million people get by on less than 50 cents a day. How would you like to be in a situation where 60% of your income was spent on food?
Food riots have brought about food rationing; 33 million Americans ( one in nine) are on food stamps and in 20 states, as many as one in eight are on food stamps. With an average monthly food stamp benefit of $113.87 per person, many, many people are without adequate food. Even more depressing is the fact that Congress allocated $54 billion for food stamps in the current fiscal year, up from $39 billion, but in the new fiscal year, costs are estimated at $60 billion.
The large factory farms have wiped out the small farmers. Our soil has been poisoned with enormous quantities of pesticides, and contaminated animals in overcrowded stockyards are fed a flowing and endless supply of antibiotics, steroids, and growth hormones. The garbage that has been pumped into the water systems has caused algae build up and mass dying of fish in the rivers and streams.
Because of the blight of changing weather patterns and chemical pollution, crop yields in the Northeast are rapidly becoming less and less. And the Food Modernization Act, another gift from the Washington politicians that serve the big corporations and not the people, means that the small farms will soon be a thing of the past.
The entire economy built around food is unsafe and unethical and it is the food that is the greatest place for communities to start taking back power. Look at reality. The national food system is collapsing. The Central Valley of California produces more than 50% of what we eat. So what happens when gasoline hits $5 a gallon or a heavy drought blankets the cropland? Chaos happens! This unstable system of food production must be replaced with small, diverse sources that will provide a greater food security.
There was a study done by Cornell University to determine whether or not New York state could feed itself. What they found was even if all agricultural land was used and food distribution was optimized to minimize the total distance that the food needed to travel, New York state could only meet 34% of their total food needs.
What's even worse is that New York City, that relied upon New Jersey for food supplies, now has to face the fact that the, if you will pardon the expression, "Garden State" has had their farms give way to housing developments. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the upstate farming communities in New York have been gutted by industrial farming.
Stay tuned for Part 2
Sunday, June 06, 2010
WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers
WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers
A stunning new report reveals that top scientists who convinced the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare H1N1 a global pandemic held close financial ties to the drug companies that profited from the sale of those vaccines. This report, published in the British Medical Journal, exposes the hidden ties that drove WHO to declare a pandemic, resulting in billions of dollars in profits for vaccine manufacturers.
Several key advisors who urged WHO to declare a pandemic received direct financial compensation from the very same vaccine manufacturers who received a windfall of profits from the pandemic announcement. During all this, WHO refused to disclose any conflicts of interests between its top advisors and the drug companies who would financially benefit from its decisions.
All the kickbacks, in other words, were swept under the table and kept silent, and WHO somehow didn't think it was important to let the world know that it was receiving policy advice from individuals who stood to make millions of dollars when a pandemic was declared.
In response to the report, WHO secretary-general Dr Margaret Chan defended the secrecy, saying that WHO intentionally kept the financial ties a secret in order to "...protect the integrity and independence of the members while doing this critical work... [and] also to ensure transparency."
Dr Chan apparently does not understand the meaning of the word "transparency." Then again, WHO has always twisted reality in order to serve its corporate masters, the pharmaceutical giants who profit from disease. To say that they are keeping the financial ties a secret in order to "protect the integrity" of the members is like saying we're all serving alcohol at tonight's AA meeting in order to keep everybody off the bottle.
It just flat out makes no sense.
But since when did making sense have anything to do with WHO's decision process anyway?
Even Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, had harsh words for the WHO, saying, "...its credibility has been badly damaged. WHO must act now to restore its credibility."
The funny thing is, NaturalNews and other natural health advocates told you all the same thing a year ago, and we didn't have to spend millions of dollars on a study to arrive at this conclusion. It was obvious to anyone who knows just how corrupt the sick-care industry really is. They'll do practically anything to make more money, including bribing WHO scientific advisors and paying them kickbacks once the vaccine sales surge.
The vaccine industry and all its drug pushers are, of course, criticizing this investigative report. They say WHO "had no choice" but to declare a pandemic and recommend vaccines, since vaccines are the only treatment option for influenza. That's a lie, of course: Vitamin D has been scientifically proven to be five times more effective than vaccines at preventing influenza infections, but WHO never recommended vitamin D to anyone.
The entire focus was on pushing more high-profit vaccines, not recommending the things that would actually help people the most. And now we know why: The more vulnerable people were to the pandemic, the more would be killed by H1N1, thereby "proving" the importance of vaccination programs.
People were kept ignorant of natural remedies, in other words, to make sure more people died and a more urgent call for mass vaccination programs could be carried out. (A few lives never gets in the way of Big Pharma profits, does it?)
Step 1) Exaggerate the risk: WHO hypes up the pandemic risk by declaring a phase 6 pandemic even when the mortality rate of the virus was so low that it could be halted with simple vitamin D supplements.
Step 2) Urge countries to stockpile: WHO urged nations around the world to stockpile H1N1 vaccines, calling it a "public health emergency."
Step 3) Collect the cash: Countries spend billions of dollars buying and stockpiling H1N1 vaccines while Big Pharma pockets the cash.
Step 4) Get your kickbacks: WHO advisors, meanwhile, collected their kickbacks from the vaccine manufacturers. Those kickbacks were intentionally kept secret.
Step 5) Keep people afraid: In order to keep demand for the vaccines as high as possible, WHO continued to flame the fears by warning that H1N1 was extremely dangerous and everybody should continue to get vaccinated. (The CDC echoed the same message in the USA.)
This is how WHO pulled off one of the greatest vaccine pandemic scams in the last century, and it worked like gangbusters. WHO advisors walked away with loads of cash, the drug companies stockpiled huge profits, and the taxpayers of nations around the world were left saddled with useless vaccines rotting on the shelves that will soon have to be destroyed (at additional taxpayer cost, no doubt) or dumped down the drain (where they will contaminate the waterways).
Meanwhile, nobody dared tell the public the truth about vitamin D, thereby ensuring that the next pandemic will give them another opportunity to repeat the exact same scam (for yet more profit).
The real question is: Why do governments continue to allow public health organizations to be so easily corrupted by the vaccine industry? And who will stand up to this profit conspiracy that exploits members of the public as if they were profit-generating guinea pigs?
The next time you hear the WHO say anything, just remember: Their advisors are on the take from the drug companies, and just about anything you're likely to hear from the World Health Organization originates with a profit motive rather than a commitment to public health.
Oh, and by the way... for the record, there has never been a single scientific study ever published showing that H1N1 vaccines worked. Not only was the H1N1 pandemic a fraud to begin with, but the medicine they claimed treated it was also based on fraud. And now we know the rest of the story of why it was all done: Kickbacks from Big Pharma, paid to advisors who told WHO to declare a pandemic.
Sources for this story include:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineF...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...
A stunning new report reveals that top scientists who convinced the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare H1N1 a global pandemic held close financial ties to the drug companies that profited from the sale of those vaccines. This report, published in the British Medical Journal, exposes the hidden ties that drove WHO to declare a pandemic, resulting in billions of dollars in profits for vaccine manufacturers.
Several key advisors who urged WHO to declare a pandemic received direct financial compensation from the very same vaccine manufacturers who received a windfall of profits from the pandemic announcement. During all this, WHO refused to disclose any conflicts of interests between its top advisors and the drug companies who would financially benefit from its decisions.
All the kickbacks, in other words, were swept under the table and kept silent, and WHO somehow didn't think it was important to let the world know that it was receiving policy advice from individuals who stood to make millions of dollars when a pandemic was declared.
WHO credibility destroyed
The report was authored by Deborah Cohen (BMJ features editor), and Philip Carter, a journalist who works for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. In their report, Cohen states, "...our investigation has revealed damaging issues. If these are not addressed, H1N1 may yet claim its biggest victim -- the credibility of the WHO and the trust in the global public health system."In response to the report, WHO secretary-general Dr Margaret Chan defended the secrecy, saying that WHO intentionally kept the financial ties a secret in order to "...protect the integrity and independence of the members while doing this critical work... [and] also to ensure transparency."
Dr Chan apparently does not understand the meaning of the word "transparency." Then again, WHO has always twisted reality in order to serve its corporate masters, the pharmaceutical giants who profit from disease. To say that they are keeping the financial ties a secret in order to "protect the integrity" of the members is like saying we're all serving alcohol at tonight's AA meeting in order to keep everybody off the bottle.
It just flat out makes no sense.
But since when did making sense have anything to do with WHO's decision process anyway?
Even Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, had harsh words for the WHO, saying, "...its credibility has been badly damaged. WHO must act now to restore its credibility."
Yet more criticism for WHO
The BMJ isn't the only medical publication criticizing WHO for its poor handling of conflicts of interest. Another report from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly also criticized WHO, saying: "Parliamentary Assembly is alarmed about the way in which the H1N1 influenza pandemic has been handled, not only by the World Health Organization (WHO), but also by the competent health authorities at the level of the European Union and at national level." It went on to explain that WHO's actions led to "a waste of large sums of public money, and also unjustified scares and fears about health risks faced by the European public at large."The funny thing is, NaturalNews and other natural health advocates told you all the same thing a year ago, and we didn't have to spend millions of dollars on a study to arrive at this conclusion. It was obvious to anyone who knows just how corrupt the sick-care industry really is. They'll do practically anything to make more money, including bribing WHO scientific advisors and paying them kickbacks once the vaccine sales surge.
The vaccine industry and all its drug pushers are, of course, criticizing this investigative report. They say WHO "had no choice" but to declare a pandemic and recommend vaccines, since vaccines are the only treatment option for influenza. That's a lie, of course: Vitamin D has been scientifically proven to be five times more effective than vaccines at preventing influenza infections, but WHO never recommended vitamin D to anyone.
The entire focus was on pushing more high-profit vaccines, not recommending the things that would actually help people the most. And now we know why: The more vulnerable people were to the pandemic, the more would be killed by H1N1, thereby "proving" the importance of vaccination programs.
People were kept ignorant of natural remedies, in other words, to make sure more people died and a more urgent call for mass vaccination programs could be carried out. (A few lives never gets in the way of Big Pharma profits, does it?)
How the scam really worked
Here's a summary of how the WHO vaccine scam worked:Step 1) Exaggerate the risk: WHO hypes up the pandemic risk by declaring a phase 6 pandemic even when the mortality rate of the virus was so low that it could be halted with simple vitamin D supplements.
Step 2) Urge countries to stockpile: WHO urged nations around the world to stockpile H1N1 vaccines, calling it a "public health emergency."
Step 3) Collect the cash: Countries spend billions of dollars buying and stockpiling H1N1 vaccines while Big Pharma pockets the cash.
Step 4) Get your kickbacks: WHO advisors, meanwhile, collected their kickbacks from the vaccine manufacturers. Those kickbacks were intentionally kept secret.
Step 5) Keep people afraid: In order to keep demand for the vaccines as high as possible, WHO continued to flame the fears by warning that H1N1 was extremely dangerous and everybody should continue to get vaccinated. (The CDC echoed the same message in the USA.)
This is how WHO pulled off one of the greatest vaccine pandemic scams in the last century, and it worked like gangbusters. WHO advisors walked away with loads of cash, the drug companies stockpiled huge profits, and the taxpayers of nations around the world were left saddled with useless vaccines rotting on the shelves that will soon have to be destroyed (at additional taxpayer cost, no doubt) or dumped down the drain (where they will contaminate the waterways).
Meanwhile, nobody dared tell the public the truth about vitamin D, thereby ensuring that the next pandemic will give them another opportunity to repeat the exact same scam (for yet more profit).
The criminality of the vaccine industry
The bottom line is all this is a frightening picture of just how pathetic the vaccine industry has become and how corrupt the WHO and the CDC really are. What took place here is called corruption and bribery, folks. Kickbacks were paid, lies were told and governments were swindled out of billions of dollars. These are felony crimes being committed by our global health leaders.The real question is: Why do governments continue to allow public health organizations to be so easily corrupted by the vaccine industry? And who will stand up to this profit conspiracy that exploits members of the public as if they were profit-generating guinea pigs?
The next time you hear the WHO say anything, just remember: Their advisors are on the take from the drug companies, and just about anything you're likely to hear from the World Health Organization originates with a profit motive rather than a commitment to public health.
Oh, and by the way... for the record, there has never been a single scientific study ever published showing that H1N1 vaccines worked. Not only was the H1N1 pandemic a fraud to begin with, but the medicine they claimed treated it was also based on fraud. And now we know the rest of the story of why it was all done: Kickbacks from Big Pharma, paid to advisors who told WHO to declare a pandemic.
Sources for this story include:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineF...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Starting Out in Volunteer Water Monitoring | Monitoring and Assessing Water Quality | US EPA
Starting Out in Volunteer Water Monitoring | Monitoring and Assessing Water Quality | US EPA
Starting Out in Volunteer Water Monitoring
PDF Version (4 pp, 837K, About PDF)
Some US EPA resources on the World Wide Web…
What is Volunteer Monitoring?
Across the country, volunteers monitor the condition of streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, coastal waters, wetlands, and wells.
They do this because they want to help protect a stream, lake, bay or wetland near where they live, work, or play. Their efforts are of particular value in providing quality data and building stewardship of local waters.
Volunteers make visual observations of habitat, land uses, and the impacts of storms; measure the physical and chemical characteristics of waters; and assess the abundance and diversity of living creatures—aquatic insects, plants, fish, birds, and other wildlife. Volunteers also clean up garbagestrewn waters, count and catalog beach debris, and become involved in restoring degraded habitats. The number, variety, and complexity of these projects are continually on the rise.
Volunteer monitoring programs are organized and supported in many different ways. Projects may be entirely independent or may be associated with state, interstate, local, or federal agencies; with environmental organizations; or with schools and universities. Financial support may come from government grants, partnerships with business, endowments, independent fundraising efforts, corporate donations, membership dues, or a combination of these sources.
Volunteers Provide Quality Data
Friday, June 04, 2010
agroecology
Principles
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The goal of agroecology is to develop and manage sustainable agroecosystems. | |
We are now in the process of preparing a broad, web-based, definition of agroecology and sustainability for use by researchers, educators, development workers, decision-makers, consumers, and farmers. We focus on the following questions: | |
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At this point in the project, we have the following materials available:
An Ecological Definition of Sustainable Agriculture Principles of Agroecology & Sustainability A Comparison of Ecosystem Properties in Agroecosystems General Principles for the Conversion Process | |
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