Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Leonard Horowitz
Leonard Horowitz: "Ebola-Nature, Accident or Intentional?, Viruses: AIDS and Learn about the ancient, newly discovered 'healing codes' that can repair DNA. Find out who hid these codes in the Bible and using them today for good and evil. Rejoice in the discovery of the electro-magnetic sound frequencies for creation, destruction and miracles. Learn everything you need to know about vaccines that could have given rise to cancer, chronic fatigue, MS, ADD, Autism and other immune system disorders. Learn about the documented evidence from a leading vaccine developer who states that vaccines had been heavily contaminated with cancer viruses. Learn what you can do to protect yourself and your family."
Namaste March 09 | Chopra Center
Namaste March 09 | Chopra Center:
In addition, here are 7 empowering steps you can take in your life right now:
- Develop a meditation practice today. Start with one of our guided meditations or find a PSM teacher in your town. Or you can learn to meditate at a Chopra Center workshop or retreat.
- Take the dosha quiz and understand your mind-body constitution to bring balance into your life.
- Experience nature – touch a natural body of water, walk on grass, sit under a tree, stand in the rain.
- Write a poem about how great you are.
- Commit one act of love today – make amends to someone you’ve hurt; forgive someone who hurt you (in person, on the phone, or in writing).
- Take a step toward clarity by making one powerful decision right now – it can be a baby step . . . throw something out that no longer serves you, wash your car, get rid of paper congestion, clean a closet, a room, or even a drawer. Give away an item of clothing.
- Perform a vital physical practice – go to a yoga class, learn pilates, go for a vigorous walk, practice deep breathing for 15 minutes, nourish yourself with a massage treatment.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Compassion Meditation Research
| The Power of Compassion
Can good thoughts for the well-being of others also keep you healthy? For centuries people have turned to various forms of meditation to quiet their minds, improve their concentration, decrease anxiety, soothe pain and facilitate healing. Research led by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and an American physician adds yet another benefit to that already impressive list -- their study found evidence that practicing a particular kind, called compassion meditation, may help reduce the type of inflammatory responses to stressful interpersonal situations that have been linked to the development of both mental and physical diseases. People who practiced compassion meditation regularly also had less distress and anger in response to stress. CHANGING THE WAY WE SEE OTHERS At Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, 61 healthy students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group participated in six weeks of twice-weekly classroom training in a non-religious version of compassion meditation while the other group (the control group) spent a similar amount of time in health discussions. Meditation teacher Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, director of the Emory-Tibet Partnership and a study author, explained that lojong (as the meditation practice is called) means training or transforming the mind. Where we're all conditioned to identify certain people as friends and others as enemies, lojong teaches us to challenge those assumptions. "It helps us see that others are no different from ourselves, that all people have the same problems and common aspirations," he explained. "It has a cognitive component that teaches us to reshape our relationships with ourselves and others to better connect each of us to all of humanity." To perform lojong meditation, students first learned how to do "meditative concentration" on their breathing, which helps stabilize the mind and refines their attention. Next they practiced mindfulness and meditation, to train them to increase their non-judgmental awareness of thoughts and bodily sensations and were instructed to focus on the universal desire of all people to be happy and avoid suffering. Finally, the students sent out their desire for happiness in a circle that expanded outward... first on themselves... then on loved ones... then to strangers... and finally, to those whom they disliked. They were instructed to concentrate on generating compassion for all people. These students were also given a CD to use to help them practice compassion meditation at home daily, keeping online records of when they meditated and for how long. A control group spent classroom time in group discussion about issues related to the physical and mental health of college students. Topics included stress management, substance abuse, sexual behavior and health, and depression and anxiety. This group also participated in role-playing exercises and mock debates on the topics they studied. As a way to maintain an equal time requirement with the meditation group for at-home participation, students in the control group were asked to write weekly opinion papers, two to three pages in length, on self-improvement topics. Study participants were recruited from their Emory University health education class and randomly assigned to either the meditation or the control (health discussion) group. A SURPRISING OUTCOME At the end of the study, students in both groups were asked to participate in a "stressful task" based on a widely used laboratory psychosocial stress test. Researchers measured their biological responses, including blood levels of the stress hormones cortisol and interleukin 6 (IL-6), which is a marker of inflammation. The researchers anticipated a difference between the meditators and the control group, but that actually turned out to be insignificant, said Charles Raison, MD, assistant professor in Emory's department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and senior author of the study. What was significant, however, was a reduction in inflammatory markers that correlated with how frequently subjects meditated. The more often subjects practiced compassion meditation, the lower the levels of inflammation in their blood after the stress test. WHY THE RESULTS MATTER We know that inflammation puts wear and tear on the body and that has a cumulative negative effect on health. Dr. Raison called it "promising" to see that engaging in a discipline that helps retrain the mind to be more compassionate not only makes people kinder, but also healthier. His co-author Dr. Negi agrees, noting that by teaching a broader acceptance of others, this type of compassion meditation can be "an instrument of health that might be of benefit to people in all walks of life." For more information on how to do a lojong practice, look for books including Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living (Shambhala Library), by Pema Chödrön... Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion (Times), by the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, PhD... and Quiet Mind: A Beginner's Guide to Meditation compiled by Susan Piver (Shambhala). Source(s): Charles Raison, MD, is an assistant professor, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University School of Medicine. Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, (also known as Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi) is senior lecturer in religion and director, Emory-Tibet Partnership. |
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Don't Believe Everything the Media Says
Medical Studies: Don't Believe Everything the Media Says JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH Harvard Medical School  hen the media reports on medical news, complex research gets reduced to sound bites -- which may be misleading. Find a full account of the study (try www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus) and ask...Are this study's results consistent with other evidence? Accuracy usually involves consistent results from different researchers... using different types of studies... and involving different people. Example: The link between smoking and lung cancer that has been seen in so many studies. Is it an observational study or a randomized clinical trial? An observational study tracks behavior and health outcomes without intervening in participants' lives. This can uncover "associations" but cannot prove a cause-and-effect link. Example: The apparent health benefits of vitamin supplements seen in observational studies simply may reflect that people who choose to use such supplements tend to have more healthful habits overall. In a randomized clinical trial, researchers actively intervene by assigning participants at random to receive treatment or a placebo -- making this the "gold standard" of research. Is it an animal study? Animal studies allow far greater control than human studies -- but results from other species may not apply directly to people. How many participants were there? The larger the study, the less likely its findings are due to chance. How long did the study last? A long-term study may detect risks or benefits that go unnoticed in shorter studies. Example: Hormone therapy using estrogen plus progestin increases risk for breast cancer -- but only after four to five years. A two-year study would not uncover this relationship. Did the study look at actual disease outcomes? Because it takes years for certain diseases to develop, many studies examine "markers" of disease. Example: Lower cholesterol levels suggest a reduced risk for heart disease -- though cholesterol reductions do not always lead to actual decreases in heart disease risk. Research looking at concrete outcomes, such as the occurrence of heart attacks, is more reliable. Who were the participants? A study is less valid if participants are not typical of the people who use the therapy. Example: The first clinical trial of estrogen therapy to reduce heart disease was done on men, not women! What does increased risk really mean? It is scary to hear that a risk factor (such as exposure to a toxin) increases risk for a certain disease by, say, 50%. But suppose that two cases of disease normally occur per 10,000 women who haven't been exposed to the toxin. In that case, a 50% increase would mean that toxic exposure leads to three cases per 10,000 women -- which isn't so scary.
Bottom Line/Women's Health interviewed JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, a professor of medicine and women's health at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, both in Boston. She is one of the lead investigators for two highly influential studies on women's health -- the Harvard Nurses' Health Study and the Women's Health Initiative. Dr. Manson is the author, with Shari Bassuk, ScD, of Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health (McGraw-Hill). |
Simple elixir called a 'miracle liquid' - Los Angeles Times
Electrolyzed water cleans, degreases -- and treats athlete's foot. The solution is replacing toxic chemicals.
By Marla Dickerson
February 23, 2009
"I didn't believe in it at first because it didn't have foam or any scent," said housekeeper Flor Corona. "But I can tell you it works. My rooms are clean."
Management likes it too. The mixture costs less than a penny a gallon. It cuts down on employee injuries from chemicals. It reduces shipping costs and waste because hotel staffers prepare the elixir on site. And it's helping the Sheraton Delfina tout its environmental credentials to guests.
The hotel's kitchen staff recently began disinfecting produce with electrolyzed water. They say the lettuce lasts longer. They're hoping to replace detergent in the dishwasher. Management figures the payback time for the $10,000 electrolysis machine will be less than a year.
"It's green. It saves money. And it's the right thing to do," said Glenn Epstein, executive assistant at the Sheraton Delfina. "It's almost like fantasy."
Actually, it's chemistry. For more than two centuries, scientists have tinkered with electrolysis, the use of an electric current to bring about a chemical reaction (not the hair-removal technique of the same name that's popular in Beverly Hills). That's how we got metal electroplating and large-scale production of chlorine, used to bleach and sanitize.
It turns out that zapping salt water with low-voltage electricity creates a couple of powerful yet nontoxic cleaning agents. Sodium ions are converted into sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases like detergent, but without the scrubbing bubbles. Chloride ions become hypochlorous acid, a potent disinfectant known as acid water.
"It's 10 times more effective than bleach in killing bacteria," said Yen-Con Hung, a professor of food science at the University of Georgia-Griffin, who has been researching electrolyzed water for more than a decade. "And it's safe."
There are drawbacks.
Electrolyzed water loses its potency fairly quickly, so it can't be stored long. Machines are pricey and geared mainly for industrial use. The process also needs to be monitored frequently for the right strength.
Then there's the "magic water" hype that has accompanied electrolyzed drinking water. A number of companies sell so-called ionizers for home use that can range from about $600 to more than $3,000. The alkaline water, proponents say, provides health benefits.
But Richard Wullaert, a Santa Barbara consultant, said consumers should be careful.
"Some of these people are making claims that will get everybody in trouble," said Wullaert, whose nonprofit Functional Water Society is spreading the word about electrolyzed water. "It's time for some serious conferences with serious scientists to give this credibility."
Most of the growth has happened outside the United States.
Russians are putting electrolyzed water down oil wells to kill pesky microbes. Europeans use it to treat burn victims. Electrolyzing equipment is helping to sanitize drinking water in parts of Latin American and Africa.
The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water -- hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso -- the miracle liquid.
That's as good a name as any for a substance that scientists say is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment.
Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it's slowly winning acceptance in the United States. A New York poultry processor uses it to kill salmonella on chicken
It's big in Japan. People there spray it on sushi to kill bacteria and fill their swimming pools with it, eliminating the need for harsh chlorine. Doctors use it to sterilize equipment and treat foot fungus and bedsores. It's the secret weapon in Sanyo Electric Corp.'s "soap-less" washing machine.
Now Sanyo is bent on cleaning up Japan's taxis with a tiny air purifier that fits into a car's cup holder. The device uses electrolyzed water to shield passengers from an unwelcome byproduct of Japan's binge-drinking business culture: vomit.
"There was some concern about the spreading of viruses and bacteria via the taxi, not to mention the . . . stinky smells," Sanyo spokesman Aaron Fowles said.
Sanyo's taxi air washer isn't yet available in the U.S.; commuters will have to hold their noses for now. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have approved electrolyzed water for a variety of uses.
PuriCore of Malvern, Pa., and Oculus Innovative Sciences of Petaluma, Calif., have developed treatments for chronic wounds. Albuquerque, N.M.-based MIOX Corp. sells municipal water-purifying systems. EAU Technologies Inc. of Kennesaw, Ga., caters to both ends of a dairy cow, with alkaline water to aid the animal's digestion and acid water to clean up its manure.
Integrated Environmental Technologies Inc. of Little River, S.C., is working with oil companies to keep wells free of bacteria and with high schools to sanitize sweaty wrestling mats and grungy football equipment that spread skin infections.
Electrolyzer Corp. of Woburn, Mass., is going after the hospitality market. The Sheraton Delfina purchased one of its machines. So has the Hyatt Regency Chicago and the Trump International Beach Resort near Miami.
Patrick Lucci, Electrolyzer's vice president of marketing, likes to bombard prospects with scientific studies, then give 'em the old razzle-dazzle. He'll swig the processed salt water before he mops the floor with it.
"Try that with bleach," he said.
The unit in Santa Monica looks a little like an oversized water heater, with two tanks side by side -- one for making the hypochlorous acid sanitizer, the other for the sodium hydroxide cleanser.
Rebecca Jimenez, director of housekeeping, heard grumbling from the cleaning staff when the hotel brought the machine in last fall. Housekeepers doubted that the flat, virtually odorless liquids were really doing the job. Some poured the guest shampoos into their bottles to work up a lather.
"If it doesn't suds up, it doesn't work," Jimenez said. "That's the mentality."
Still, she said, most have come around and are enjoying working without fumes and peeling skin.
Minnesota food scientist Joellen Feirtag said she was similarly skeptical. So she installed an electrolysis unit in her laboratory and began researching the technology. She found that the acid water killed E. coli, salmonella, listeria and other nasty pathogens. Yet it was gentle enough to soothe her children's sunburns and acne.
She's now encouraging food processors to take a look at electrolyzed water to help combat the disease outbreaks that have roiled the industry. Most are dubious.
"This sounds too good to be true, which is really the biggest problem," said Feirtag, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. "But it's only a matter of time before this becomes mainstream."
marla.dickerson@latimes.com
By Marla Dickerson
February 23, 2009
It's a kitchen degreaser. It's a window cleaner. It kills athlete's foot. Oh, and you can drink it.
Sounds like the old "Saturday Night Live" gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. It has been approved by U.S. regulators. And it's starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job.
Sounds like the old "Saturday Night Live" gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. It has been approved by U.S. regulators. And it's starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job.
-
-
Creating magic water.
The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water -- hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso -- the miracle liquid.
That's as good a name as any for a substance that scientists say is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment.
Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it's slowly winning acceptance in the United States. A New York poultry processor uses it to kill salmonella on chicken carcasses. Minnesota grocery clerks spray sticky conveyors in the checkout lanes. Michigan jailers mop with electrolyzed water to keep potentially lethal cleaners out of the hands of inmates.
"I didn't believe in it at first because it didn't have foam or any scent," said housekeeper Flor Corona. "But I can tell you it works. My rooms are clean."
Management likes it too. The mixture costs less than a penny a gallon. It cuts down on employee injuries from chemicals. It reduces shipping costs and waste because hotel staffers prepare the elixir on site. And it's helping the Sheraton Delfina tout its environmental credentials to guests.
The hotel's kitchen staff recently began disinfecting produce with electrolyzed water. They say the lettuce lasts longer. They're hoping to replace detergent in the dishwasher. Management figures the payback time for the $10,000 electrolysis machine will be less than a year.
"It's green. It saves money. And it's the right thing to do," said Glenn Epstein, executive assistant at the Sheraton Delfina. "It's almost like fantasy."
Actually, it's chemistry. For more than two centuries, scientists have tinkered with electrolysis, the use of an electric current to bring about a chemical reaction (not the hair-removal technique of the same name that's popular in Beverly Hills). That's how we got metal electroplating and large-scale production of chlorine, used to bleach and sanitize.
It turns out that zapping salt water with low-voltage electricity creates a couple of powerful yet nontoxic cleaning agents. Sodium ions are converted into sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases like detergent, but without the scrubbing bubbles. Chloride ions become hypochlorous acid, a potent disinfectant known as acid water.
"It's 10 times more effective than bleach in killing bacteria," said Yen-Con Hung, a professor of food science at the University of Georgia-Griffin, who has been researching electrolyzed water for more than a decade. "And it's safe."
There are drawbacks.
Electrolyzed water loses its potency fairly quickly, so it can't be stored long. Machines are pricey and geared mainly for industrial use. The process also needs to be monitored frequently for the right strength.
Then there's the "magic water" hype that has accompanied electrolyzed drinking water. A number of companies sell so-called ionizers for home use that can range from about $600 to more than $3,000. The alkaline water, proponents say, provides health benefits.
But Richard Wullaert, a Santa Barbara consultant, said consumers should be careful.
"Some of these people are making claims that will get everybody in trouble," said Wullaert, whose nonprofit Functional Water Society is spreading the word about electrolyzed water. "It's time for some serious conferences with serious scientists to give this credibility."
Most of the growth has happened outside the United States.
Russians are putting electrolyzed water down oil wells to kill pesky microbes. Europeans use it to treat burn victims. Electrolyzing equipment is helping to sanitize drinking water in parts of Latin American and Africa.
The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water -- hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso -- the miracle liquid.
That's as good a name as any for a substance that scientists say is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment.
Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it's slowly winning acceptance in the United States. A New York poultry processor uses it to kill salmonella on chicken
It's big in Japan. People there spray it on sushi to kill bacteria and fill their swimming pools with it, eliminating the need for harsh chlorine. Doctors use it to sterilize equipment and treat foot fungus and bedsores. It's the secret weapon in Sanyo Electric Corp.'s "soap-less" washing machine.
Now Sanyo is bent on cleaning up Japan's taxis with a tiny air purifier that fits into a car's cup holder. The device uses electrolyzed water to shield passengers from an unwelcome byproduct of Japan's binge-drinking business culture: vomit.
"There was some concern about the spreading of viruses and bacteria via the taxi, not to mention the . . . stinky smells," Sanyo spokesman Aaron Fowles said.
Sanyo's taxi air washer isn't yet available in the U.S.; commuters will have to hold their noses for now. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have approved electrolyzed water for a variety of uses.
PuriCore of Malvern, Pa., and Oculus Innovative Sciences of Petaluma, Calif., have developed treatments for chronic wounds. Albuquerque, N.M.-based MIOX Corp. sells municipal water-purifying systems. EAU Technologies Inc. of Kennesaw, Ga., caters to both ends of a dairy cow, with alkaline water to aid the animal's digestion and acid water to clean up its manure.
Integrated Environmental Technologies Inc. of Little River, S.C., is working with oil companies to keep wells free of bacteria and with high schools to sanitize sweaty wrestling mats and grungy football equipment that spread skin infections.
Electrolyzer Corp. of Woburn, Mass., is going after the hospitality market. The Sheraton Delfina purchased one of its machines. So has the Hyatt Regency Chicago and the Trump International Beach Resort near Miami.
Patrick Lucci, Electrolyzer's vice president of marketing, likes to bombard prospects with scientific studies, then give 'em the old razzle-dazzle. He'll swig the processed salt water before he mops the floor with it.
"Try that with bleach," he said.
The unit in Santa Monica looks a little like an oversized water heater, with two tanks side by side -- one for making the hypochlorous acid sanitizer, the other for the sodium hydroxide cleanser.
Rebecca Jimenez, director of housekeeping, heard grumbling from the cleaning staff when the hotel brought the machine in last fall. Housekeepers doubted that the flat, virtually odorless liquids were really doing the job. Some poured the guest shampoos into their bottles to work up a lather.
"If it doesn't suds up, it doesn't work," Jimenez said. "That's the mentality."
Still, she said, most have come around and are enjoying working without fumes and peeling skin.
Minnesota food scientist Joellen Feirtag said she was similarly skeptical. So she installed an electrolysis unit in her laboratory and began researching the technology. She found that the acid water killed E. coli, salmonella, listeria and other nasty pathogens. Yet it was gentle enough to soothe her children's sunburns and acne.
She's now encouraging food processors to take a look at electrolyzed water to help combat the disease outbreaks that have roiled the industry. Most are dubious.
"This sounds too good to be true, which is really the biggest problem," said Feirtag, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. "But it's only a matter of time before this becomes mainstream."
marla.dickerson@latimes.com
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sustainable Future: Search results for water
Trees for Water
Forests play a major role in the water cycle and help stabilize water tables and maintain freshwater supplies. They do this by promoting precipitation, providing shade and mulch to reduce surface evaporation, and slowing down rain run-off (giving it time to soak into the soil).
Forests play a major role in the water cycle and help stabilize water tables and maintain freshwater supplies. They do this by promoting precipitation, providing shade and mulch to reduce surface evaporation, and slowing down rain run-off (giving it time to soak into the soil).
"Trees regulate water supply, keeping it available for their own needs and for those of other plants, for humans and other animals. The roots of the great forest trees penetrate deeply into the earth and draw up great quantities of water which pass through the trees and out through the leaves to create "oceans of the air". Thus the water is kept available for rain. Trees may deprive plants grown immediately beneath but help those at a distance. Forest height and the cooling effect of the water transpired by the leaves can promote rain in the same way as mountain ranges that force the rain clouds to rise and cool. Paul Schreiber, the meteorologist, estimated that a region covered with forest increased rainfall to the same degree as elevating it 350ft.
When rain falls on forest canopies, its force is broken by the leaves and branches so that it seeps gently through the forest debris to replenish the water tables below. Sinking wells where there are no tree belts in the area to maintain water tables can be a dangerous living off capital. Water running off of bared hillsides carries away the soil, not only depriving the uplands but also silting up dams and reservoirs and causing rivers to flood." -- from the essay Trees for a Future
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
There are alleged "food safety" bills in Congress right now (HB 875, HB 814, SF 425 and possibly soon, HB 759) which are - to put it plainly and truthfullly - the death of organic farming and independent farming in America.
One, at least, merges the USDA and FDA, immensely corrupted agencies, into a more powerful, centralized agency [how soon we forget the danger of centralizing intelligence agencies] that gives even more power to Monsanto and other corporations which already have control over those agencies. These bills merging the of USDA and FDA were introduced one week after Vilsack in a press conference said they weren't thinking of doing that yet.
With great excitement, Merrigan is seen as a victory for progressives who have been waiting way too long for any. The great shame, the danger even, is they aren't noticing what is happening off to the side that is the very thing they should most fear.
HB 875, which is the larger and appears to be the central one, looks innocuous. It is that surface we are encouraged to concentrate on. The surface is "food safety" and the hope is government finally acting to protect us. Below that surface are two things - that those who cause the dangerous food are running this show, and that "food safety" has been used before and is being used here again to destroy the only people who actually provide it.
Wanting food safety and more muscle behind that seems logical, until you look at the agencies being given more power.
"The thing that bugs me is that people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it's doing are as different as night and day.”
Dr. Herbert Ley, Commissioner of the FDA. (San Francisco Chronicle, 1-2-70).
What is the FDA doing?
"First, it is providing a means whereby key individuals on its payroll are able to obtain both power and wealth through granting special favors to certain politically influential groups that are subject to its regulation. This activity is similar to the 'protection racket' of organized crime: for a price, one can induce FDA administrators to provide 'protection' from the FDA itself.
"Secondly, as a result of this political favoritism, the FDA has become a primary factor in that formula whereby cartel-oriented companies in the food and drug industry are able to use the police powers of government to harass or destroy their free-market competitors.
"And thirdly, the FDA occasionally does some genuine public good with whatever energies it has left over after serving the vested political and commercial interest of its first two activities." - G. Edward Griffin, World Without Cancer.
FDA tactics.
"The hearings have revealed police-state tactics...possibly perjured testimony to gain a conviction,...intimidation and gross disregard for the Constitutional Rights...(of) First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, (by the FDA)
"Instance after instance of FDA raids on small vitamin and food supplement manufacturers. These small, defenseless businesses were guilty of producing products which FDA officials claimed were unnecessary."
"If the FDA would spend a little less time and effort on small manufacturers of vitamins...and a little more on the large manufacturers of...dangerous drugs..., the public would be better served." - Senator Long from various Senate hearings.
As late as November of 2008, scientists at the FDA revolted against its corrupt managers, submitting a letter to Congress.
Dingel charged FDA bureaucrats with "gross violation of laws and regulations..."
FDA and drugs.
FDA is at the center of "a national controversy over [its] ability to protect the public against unsafe medicines. As associate director for science and medicine in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, Graham told Congress last month that FDA's problems with ensuring drug safety were "immense in scope" and left the nation "virtually defenseless" against the chance that unsafe drugs will reach consumers.
FDA - in regard to food, both as they relate to harming safe local farming and actually greatly decreasing safety to the sole advantage of industry and immense risk to the public :
- FDA instituted HACCP [coming in through Carol Tucker Forman, representing Monsanto at the same time] wiped out 72 local meat processors in Kansas (please imagine the loss of jobs, of food security, of community in those places, and then multiplied across state after state) who had had no problems with e-coli, while creating a vastly more centralized "industrial" (corporate) system in which inspections fell and food safety problems increased.
"HACCP [was] the keystone of President Clinton's globalization strategy to restrict the ability of Congress and of citizens at risk of health to make safety a political, or policy issue." FDA's HACCP made "feces" an approved part of the American diet."
- American cherry growers got money from the the USDA for an independent study which showed that cherries were potentially ten times stronger than aspirin and ibuprofen for controlling pain (separate from being incredibly high in anti-oxidants). FDA, exceeding its regulatory authority immediately forbade them from even putting a link on their websites to the peer reveiwed study) while allowing NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: aspirin, tylenol, aleve ...) which cause thousands of deaths a year and well over a hundred thousand hospitalizations and those figures do not even include over the counter deaths and serious illnesses. Yet there appear to be no deaths by cherry.
And the USDA?
"The organic food industry made the mistake of asking the USDA to regulate it, since there were many unscrupulous "organic" farmers who sold food that was not really organic, as organic. In 1998, there was a major consumer effort to stop an agribusiness takeover of the industry, and the battle is not finished. [My emphasis.]
" ...organic” is a misnomer, as the movement is more of an effort to counter the agribusiness mentality, with its artificial fertilizers, genetically engineered life, radiating food, and so on, and get back to natural methods.
"Agribusiness companies control the USDA, just as the drug companies control the FDA. ... An internal USDA memo that Mother Jones obtained in 1998 showed that the USDA was influenced by the biotech companies, which was why its original standard classified genetically engineered food as organic."
"The USDA's originally proposed standard would have eliminated organic food as it is known today. ... It is as if Lucifer himself is writing the law. Is the USDA really that blind, or do they know exactly what they are doing?"
The examples of both the USDA and FDA favoring industry to the literal destruction of small farmers or small businesses though their products are safer, are many and continuing. The USDA and FDA have worked to eliminate all non-corporate, less expensive, more healthy, green, and local alternatives to industrial food and industrial drugs under the aegis of food or drug safety, while passing and protecting and promoting dangerous corporate products such as rBGH and Vioxx.
The innocuous looking HB 875 brings these two corrupt agencies together, and with immensely more power. In recognizing the large international corporate moves being made to take over food , one can begin to appreciate where this and the other bills fit in.
Hillary Clinton ran on a platform to create this centralized "food safety-actually-the-opposite" department (just as Bill Clinton wanted an "organic" label that would absurdly include genetically engineered and irradiated food and sewage sludge as fertilizer). Both promoted a twisting of reality - dangers with a positive label slapped on top. Her long-time advisor (and perhaps his) has been Mark Penn, head of Burson-Masteller, one of the largest and most reviled PR firms in the world which represents Monsanto, Blackwater, ExxonMobil (they helped cover up the spill), Union Carbide after Bhopal (minimizing the disaster there), the Argentinian junta, and more.
We all know what PR firms do. They stage things, they time things just right for the introduction of something, they create atmosphere they want, they dress things up to look good for the camera which are in fact rotten or dangerous. And they can make people and things which are good, look bad. In short, they manipulate public opinion by manipulating the truth. And when they work for one of the most evil corporations on earth, Monsanto, the degree to which they can pull that off is the degree to which we are all subjected to extreme dangers.
HB 875 is called a "food safety" bill and it looks "nice." But it includes coded words that make other very "not nice" things become suddenly operative, things that are not mentioned directly in the bill but are buried in multiple other places, as simple lists or as regulations which have never been debated by law makers or voted on by the public, but inserted into agency documents, frequently by industries which are supposed to be regulated by those very industries.
The coded words around "tracing" trigger NAIS [please watch this video by the Organic Consumers Association] and any words around "best farming practices" would unleash a slew of absolute government controls over (but not limited to) things such as what the farmers must feed their animals (one assumes it will be GMO feed from Monsanto Bt-corn and Bt-soy) and when, what medical regimen they must follow (one assumes it will be the drugs Big PHARM and Big PHARMA sell), what kind of spray (one assumes it will be the pesticides Monsanto sells) and when and where farmers must apply it.
It is clear from those three items alone (what the animals eat, what drugs they are subject to, what is done to the soil and plants) that "best farming practices" and many more anti-farming practices) would industrialize every farm and destroying all organic farms.
But it is worse than that because we are looking at the actual industrial enslavement of our once free farmers by government. They would be forced into a system in which they would not only be ordered what to do and when, but become "captives" to purchasing mandated products from the very industry that has taken over our tax-payer-funded agencies and is imposing this farm-and-health-destructive regime. The only farmers producing safe food would be paying taxes to be personally destroyed by the centralized USDA/FDA "food safety" department.
Monsanto influences both agencies. It gets more power and more control. It gets data banks to oversee all farmers and even to take DNA from their animals. It gets mandated purchase of its products. It gets to kill organic farming and food.
"Best farming practices" also include not having animals and crops on the same farm. Could these farming regulations get any more bureaucratically distant from real farming or thus more insane?
As tricky and corrupt as it seemed Bill Clinton's proposal to label Monsanto's genetically engineered crops and animals "organic," the centralized "food safety" department proposed by Hillary Clinton leaves such single layered, transparent wrong-doing in the dust. For now now it is not a fake label being proposed, but an entire fake (as to providing "food safety") agency being called for and timed to seem "in response to" deaths and with all its threats hidden in multiple places.
So while Bill Clinton's proposal would have only hidden what we eat under a lying label, removing all voluntary choice and trapping us into their dangers through enforced ignorance, these "food safety" bills hide the hand of and the greatly multiplied power of Monsanto, hide the death of all independent (non-corporate) and organic farming, and hide the literal take over the entire US food supply.
Hard to get more clever than that.
It is also hard not to notice both Bill and Hillary Clinton's long standing connections to Monsanto, how much Monsanto already influences both agencies to its own advantage and how much it gains from these bills.
Buried many layers deep within "best farming practices" are a list of "sources of seed contamination."
Agricultural water
manure (not chemical fertilizers and pesticides)
transporting, harvesting and seed cleaning equipment
seed storage facilities
Seed cleaning equipment, I understand, has already been made illegal this year though there have been no illnesses related to it. A farmers said he may still clean seed but he would need a million to a million and a half dollar building and equipment to do so now.
Seed storage facilities are also listed. One sees the direction this is going.
Seed storage facilities would be declared illegal as well, as sources of "seed contamination." All the wonderful seed banks around the country put together by devoted and hard working people to preserve biodiversity for all of us, threaten the absolute monopoly over seeds and food that Monsanto seeks. Oh, one could still have a seed bank but they'd need a million or two million or five million dollar "facility" to meet "food safety" requirements.
Monsanto and the biotech industry want no more farm-saved seed (or individual saved seed). In the EU, seeds not on the official seed list (which costs thousands of pounds to be on) may not be sold to the public.
Seeds are life to all of us. Seeds are freedom to survive.
Yet Monsanto is aggressively doing all it can to put normal seeds out of reach , (making it a crime for farmers in Iraq to use their own seeds, for instance) and attempting to make saving of normal seed illegal here. The insertion of harmless seed cleaning equipment and seed storage - both essential to organic and independent farming - as a threat to "food safety" is a tip-off to Monsanto's hand in this and its sleight of hand in destroying organic farming in these kinds of unanticipated ways.
The left is being massively played. Even if this appointee would be good, there will be no organic farming to oversee. All the laws coming out of HB 875 and the other bills will already have destroyed it.
Good bye seed banks. Good bye biodiversity which is critical to survival. Good bye human control over seeds which are the basis of all life ... which are our biologic inheritance and most fundamental human right. Good bye to a country full of independent farmers ... the floor under any democracy,
Instead, we have illusion. Burson-Marsteller, a major, major PR firm, works for corporations to cover up the literal deadly harm they do. We are being encouraged to watch a show. Look behind the curtain. Monsanto is there.
"We need the World Bank, we need the International Monetary Fund, we need all the big foundations, we need all the governments to admit that for 30 years we all blew it, including me, when I was President. We blew it. We were wrong to believe that food is like some other product in international trade. And we all have to go back to a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture."
Former US President Bill Clinton, in a keynote address for World Food Day on 23 October 2008
Monsanto now is talking "sustainable." It's PR . They also used Bollywood actors to sell Bt-cotton to Indian farmers but non-PR reality flowed from that. 182,000 Indian farmers have committed suicidesince Bill Clinton and the IMF and the World Bank forced India's door open to Monsanto and Big Ag.
The bills in Congress, dressed up as "food safety," are in fact the death of organic and independent farming in our country and a vast intensification of globalization as part of a plan for tight international corporate control over our food.
Progressive rejoicing at Kathleen A. Merrigan's appointment to the USDA as a major win is surely making Monsanto and Big Ag cronies in their boardrooms laugh and pass around cigars over their well-crafted plan to thoroughly deceive and distract the left so HB 875, HB 814, SF 425 and (later) HB 759 can move ahead in Congress just as planned.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Here’s Your Chance to Change the FDA - I Need Your Help on This One - articles - articles.mercola.com
“FDA Science and Mission at Risk” was released by the FDA. In this report, the agency admitted that it lacks the competency and capacity to keep up with scientific advances.
The FDA now admits that Americans are suffering and dying because the FDA does not have the scientific ability to ascertain if new drugs are safe or effective or to evaluate scientific claims.
These failures affect the health of all Americans. Good drugs are not approved or approved after interminable delays. Even after new drugs are shown to be safe, doctors cannot use them with terminally ill patients whose cases are otherwise hopeless. Bad drugs are approved -- often on the basis of a recommendation by panels whose members include drug company consultants.
The record with the food supply is almost as bad as with drugs. When fresh food turns out to be contaminated, the only solution the Agency can come up with is to "nuke" it with radiation. What does this do to food? The FDA certainly does not know.
The FDA pushes forward, approving faulty and dangerous drugs and medical devices by the thousands and approving toxic chemicals for use in baby formula, baby bottles, and prescription drugs. Meanwhile, the FDA pursues what can only be described as a harassment campaign against those who want to rely on wholesome foods, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes to achieve natural good health.
A veritable revolution is taking place in the science of food, food extracts, and food supplements. Food producers would like to tell the American public about it. Millions of lives could be saved as a result. But the FDA will not permit it. The Agency ignores first amendment protections and censors the communication of valid scientific information.
The epidemics currently plaguing this country -- cancer, obesity, diabetes, asthma and allergies, and many other debilitating disorders -- are linked to manmade products and processes that the FDA has approved and promoted. These failures have resulted in the sickest generation in the history of this country. The agency seems to have lost sight of its mandate to protect the public and has instead come to see itself as the guardian of corporate interests. It is time to end the many conflicts of interest linking the FDA to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, conflicts of interest that betray the public and harm so many American consumers.
It is time to reform the FDA!
The FDA now admits that Americans are suffering and dying because the FDA does not have the scientific ability to ascertain if new drugs are safe or effective or to evaluate scientific claims.
These failures affect the health of all Americans. Good drugs are not approved or approved after interminable delays. Even after new drugs are shown to be safe, doctors cannot use them with terminally ill patients whose cases are otherwise hopeless. Bad drugs are approved -- often on the basis of a recommendation by panels whose members include drug company consultants.
The record with the food supply is almost as bad as with drugs. When fresh food turns out to be contaminated, the only solution the Agency can come up with is to "nuke" it with radiation. What does this do to food? The FDA certainly does not know.
The FDA pushes forward, approving faulty and dangerous drugs and medical devices by the thousands and approving toxic chemicals for use in baby formula, baby bottles, and prescription drugs. Meanwhile, the FDA pursues what can only be described as a harassment campaign against those who want to rely on wholesome foods, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes to achieve natural good health.
A veritable revolution is taking place in the science of food, food extracts, and food supplements. Food producers would like to tell the American public about it. Millions of lives could be saved as a result. But the FDA will not permit it. The Agency ignores first amendment protections and censors the communication of valid scientific information.
The epidemics currently plaguing this country -- cancer, obesity, diabetes, asthma and allergies, and many other debilitating disorders -- are linked to manmade products and processes that the FDA has approved and promoted. These failures have resulted in the sickest generation in the history of this country. The agency seems to have lost sight of its mandate to protect the public and has instead come to see itself as the guardian of corporate interests. It is time to end the many conflicts of interest linking the FDA to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, conflicts of interest that betray the public and harm so many American consumers.
It is time to reform the FDA!
10 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer Now - Switched
10 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer Now - Switched: "There is nothing more frustrating on this Earth than a slow computer -- especially in these tough economic times, when running out and buying a new high-end PC is not necessarily an option. But here's the good news: There is plenty you can do yourself, right now, that'll speed up your computer. We've compiled a list of 10 tips and tricks you can easily implement on your existing computer. Some involve just a few quick steps, while others are more involved, but rest easy: We've included directions for everything. Take a look by clicking on 'Next' below, and get ready for the fast times!"
RFID chip
The RFID chip makers started looking for markets for their injectable chip as soon as it was invented. I've been following their info for years. Very scary, Orwellian even (as in 1984, the book). These guys sell human scanners that look just like the metal detectors used in libraries and department stores. These systems have been sold to South America dictators who have chipped prisoners in their prisons. This is very real, not an illusion and, in my opinion, if they could get their way, we will be chipped too. Animal shelters are chipping dogs & cats, NAIS is chipping farm animals. Many companies chip their products. I wonder how the animals feel and what they think about being made a part of the computerized Matrix, property of the machine world. Grosses me out completely. In our other group I've posted updates on RFID research and implementation a number of times, trying to alert folks to this insidious plan to track (and eventually control) everything. Pure evil. The new nano-electronic chips are far smaller than the grain of rice sized chips currently being injected into animals and human prisoners. They are small enough to be inhaled or swallowed in a drink without you even knowing it. If you get chipped you can fry the chip with high voltage static electricity (stun gun or electric fence). I hope people here don't think I'm "just being paranoid". Maybe it's best to simply provide my link collection on the topic. Some of these links are probably dead by now but others should still work. Unfortunately, due to a computer crash a couple of years back, I lost the links to the earlier research and implementation of the RFID chip, so all the detail is not presented:
http://cq.cx/ verichip. pl
http://www.greatdre ams.com/rfid. htm
http://www.epic. org/privacy/ rfid/
http://www.spychips .com/press- releases/ verichip- hacked.html
http://shop. toolsforhealing. com/Magnetic_ Pulser_MPG5_ p/st-mpg5. htm
http://www.rense. com/general69/ vfid.htm
http://www.spychips .com/
http://www.stopanim alid.org/ whatis.php
http://www.schneier .com/blog/ archives/ 2005/05/real_ id.html
http://www.epic. org/privacy/ id_cards/
http://www.unrealid .com/
http://writ. news.findlaw. com/leavitt/ 20050509. html
http://www.rense. com/general65/ realid.htm
http://arstechnica. com/news. ars/post/ 20060113- 5974.html
http://www.news10. net/storyfull2. aspx?storyid= 16091
http://blog. aclu.org/ index.php? /archives/ 22-Real-ID- Privacy-Nightmar es.html
http://www.spychips .com/press- releases/ verichip- immigration. html
http://globalguerri llas.typepad. com/globalguerri llas/2006/ 01/weapons_ the_rfi.html
http://rfidzapper. dyndns.org/ wiki/index. php/Hands_ On
http://www.dhbolton .com/articles/ diy-emp-generato r.html
http://www.smartcod ecorp.com/ newsroom/ 13-01-04. asp
http://www.globalre search.ca/ index.php? context=va& aid=10097
http://www.wethepeo plewillnotbechip ped.com/phpfusio n/news.php
http://cq.cx/ verichip. pl
http://www.greatdre ams.com/rfid. htm
http://www.epic. org/privacy/ rfid/
http://www.spychips .com/press- releases/ verichip- hacked.html
http://shop. toolsforhealing. com/Magnetic_ Pulser_MPG5_ p/st-mpg5. htm
http://www.rense. com/general69/ vfid.htm
http://www.spychips .com/
http://www.stopanim alid.org/ whatis.php
http://www.schneier .com/blog/ archives/ 2005/05/real_ id.html
http://www.epic. org/privacy/ id_cards/
http://www.unrealid .com/
http://writ. news.findlaw. com/leavitt/ 20050509. html
http://www.rense. com/general65/ realid.htm
http://arstechnica. com/news. ars/post/ 20060113- 5974.html
http://www.news10. net/storyfull2. aspx?storyid= 16091
http://blog. aclu.org/ index.php? /archives/ 22-Real-ID- Privacy-Nightmar es.html
http://www.spychips .com/press- releases/ verichip- immigration. html
http://globalguerri llas.typepad. com/globalguerri llas/2006/ 01/weapons_ the_rfi.html
http://rfidzapper. dyndns.org/ wiki/index. php/Hands_ On
http://www.dhbolton .com/articles/ diy-emp-generato r.html
http://www.smartcod ecorp.com/ newsroom/ 13-01-04. asp
http://www.globalre search.ca/ index.php? context=va& aid=10097
http://www.wethepeo plewillnotbechip ped.com/phpfusio n/news.php
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Strategy for Brain and Mental Health
Dr. Mark Hyman's "UltraMind" Strategy for Brain and Mental Health
Mental illness is on the rise, and conventional medicine cannot cure it. That's the message from Mark Hyman, MD, who offers an alternative answer in his new book, The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First. He notes that an epidemic of "broken brains" affects millions of people worldwide, taking many forms -- anxiety, depression, dementia, addictions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, etc. The common model for addressing these disorders is drug therapy... but drugs alone fail to address the underlying causes of mental disease. THE SHORTCOMINGS OF DRUG THERAPY The real cure for brain disorders lies outside the brain, Dr. Hyman explains. If you suffer from depression, for example, you are not suffering from a "Prozac deficiency" in spite of the fact that doctors may prescribe it or other antidepressants. Mainstream medicine's approach is to make a diagnosis based on symptoms, then suppress those symptoms with a medication rather than identifying the cause and fixing that. For example, many cases of depression are actually rooted in nutritional deficiencies or imbalances, including vitamin D, B-12, an omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, or a problem with digestive function or some other biological deficit. And, just about all these can be corrected without antidepressants. In fact, Dr. Hyman points out that most people who take antidepressants find that they offer only partial relief, lose effectiveness over time or simply don't work. These drugs also cause side effects such as weight gain and loss of sex drive, and more than half of people who take them quit within months. In reality, everything that affects the body affects the brain, since it is one of the most vital organs of the body, and everything that affects the brain affects the rest of the body. Simply taking an antidepressant for depression -- or Ritalin for ADHD, or an anti-anxiety medication and so forth -- fails to take this basic body-mind connection into account. In Dr. Hyman's opinion, a new paradigm for mental illness must take a wider view of a person, not merely focus on the brain, since there are myriad causes of mental illness. This view should replace the shortsighted approach to treatment where a doctor marks down a diagnostic code on a patient's chart and prescribes the corresponding pill. DR. HYMAN'S ULTRAMIND SOLUTION According to Dr. Hyman, there are seven key influences affecting your brain, your memory, attention, mood and behavior -- nutrition, hormones, inflammation, digestion, detoxification, energy metabolism and the mind-body connection. When one or more of these are thrown off-kilter, imbalances develop, which can manifest in mental and/or emotional illness. Identifying and addressing imbalances thusly enables the body's natural healing mechanisms to take over, bringing about dramatic improvements in mood, memory, attention, concentration, cognition and other brain functions. Dr. Hyman recommends a three-pronged strategy for brain wellness: His book has quizzes to help identify which of your seven underlying systems isn't working... suggestions on how to fix the underlying problem causing the imbalance... and ways to nourish all these aspects so they can function optimally as an integrated system. We took a brief look at how each of the seven key systems affects mental health, and what you can do to help keep them in balance.
Drugs can provide a temporary fix for brain problems, says Dr. Hyman, but these are not the long-term solution. As usual, it takes more work than popping a pill, but in the long run a healthy mind and body are worth it. Source(s):Mark Hyman, MD, author of The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First (Scribner), UltraMetabolism (Atria) and The UltraSimple Diet (Pocket). Dr. Hyman is founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, and the former co-medical director at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Massachusetts. Visit his Web sites at www.ultrawellness.com, www.ultrawellnesscenter.com and www.ultramind.com. |
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness
The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness
By Laura Sayre
You may be familiar with many of the problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These “factory farm” operations are often criticized for the smell and water pollution caused by all that concentrated manure; the unnatural, grain-heavy diets the animals consume; and the stressful, unhealthy conditions in which the animals live. You may not be aware, however, of the threat such facilities hold for you and your family’s health — even if you never buy any of the meat produced in this manner.
Factory farms are breeding grounds for virulent disease, which can then spread to the wider community via many routes — not just in food, but also in water, the air, and the bodies of farmers, farm workers and their families. Once those microbes become widespread in the environment, it’s very difficult to get rid of them.
A 2008 report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a joint project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, underscores those risks. The 111-page report, two years in the making, outlines the public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural livelihood consequences of what they call “industrial farm animal production.” Its conclusions couldn’t be clearer. Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations.
Scientists, medical personnel and public health officials have been sounding the alarm on these issues for some time. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have recommended restrictions on agricultural uses of antibiotics; the American Public Health Association (APHA) proposed a moratorium on CAFOs back in 2003. All told, more than 350 professional organizations — including the APHA, American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — have called for greater regulation of antibiotic use in livestock. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the United States. The FAO recently warned that global industrial meat production poses a serious threat to human health.
The situation is akin to that surrounding global climate change four or five years ago: near-universal scientific consensus matched by government inaction and media inattention. Although the specter of pandemic flu — in which a virulent strain of the influenza virus recombines with a highly contagious strain to create a bug rivaling that responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, thought to have killed as many as 50 million people — is the most dire scenario, antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year.
People, Animals and Microbes
From one perspective, picking up bugs from our domesticated animals is nothing new. Approximately two-thirds of the 1,400 known human pathogens are thought to have originated in animals: Scientists think tuberculosis and the common cold probably came to us from cattle; pertussis from pigs or sheep; leprosy from water buffalo; influenza from ducks.
Most of these ailments probably appeared relatively early in the 10,000-year-old history of animal domestication. Over time, some human populations developed immunity to these diseases; others were eventually controlled with vaccines.
Some continued to kill humans until the mid-20th century discovery of penicillin, a miracle drug that rendered formerly life-threatening infections relatively harmless. Other antibiotics followed, until by the 1960s leading researchers and public health officials were declaring that the war on infectious diseases had been won.
Beginning in the mid 1970s, however, the numbers of deaths from infectious diseases in the United States started to go back up. Some were from old nemeses, such as tuberculosis, newly resistant to standard antibiotic treatments; others were wholly novel.
“In recent decades,” writes Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States and author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, “previously unknown diseases have surfaced at a pace unheard of in the recorded annals of medicine: more than 30 newly identified human pathogens in 30 years, most of them newly discovered zoonotic viruses.” (Zoonotic viruses are those that can be passed from animals to humans.)
Why is this happening? There are many reasons, including the increased pace of international travel and human incursions into wild animals’ habitats. But one factor stands out: the rise of industrial farm animal production. “Factory farms represent the most significant change in the lives of animals in 10,000 years,” Greger writes. “This is not how animals were supposed to live.”
Chicken and pig production are particularly bad. In 1965, the total U.S. hog population numbered 53 million, spread over more than 1 million pig farms in the United States — most of them small family operations. Today, we have 65 million hogs on just 65,640 farms nationwide. Many of these “farms” — 2,538, to be exact — have upwards of 5,000 hogs on the premises at any given time. Broiler chicken production rose from 366 million in 1945 to 8,400 million in 2001, most of them in facilities housing tens of thousands of birds.
On a global scale, the situation is even worse. Fifty-five billion chickens are now reared each year worldwide. The global pig inventory is approaching 1 billion, an estimated half of which are raised in confinement. In China and Malaysia, it’s not unheard of for hog facilities to house 20,000 or even 50,000 animals.
The Mechanics of Resistance
“Concentrated animal feeding operations are comparable to poorly run hospitals, where everyone is given antibiotics, patients lie in unchanged beds, hygiene is nonexistent, infections and re-infections are rife, waste is thrown out the window, and visitors enter and leave at will,” write Johns Hopkins researchers Ellen Silbergeld, Jay Graham and Lance Price in the 2008 Annual Review of Public Health. By concentrating large numbers of animals together, factory farms are terrific incubators for disease. The stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals’ immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; the lack of sunlight and fresh air — as well as the genetic uniformity of industrial farm animal populations — facilitates the spread of pathogens.
The addition of steady doses of antibiotics to this picture tips the balance from appalling to catastrophic. Poultry producers discovered by accident in the 1940s that feeding tetracycline fermentation byproducts accelerated chickens’ growth. Since then, the use of antibiotics as feed additives has become standard practice across much of the industry. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that non-therapeutic animal agriculture use (drugs given to animals even when they are not sick) accounts for 70 percent of total antibiotic consumption in the United States.
The medical community has been cautioning for years against irresponsible antibiotic use among people, but in terms of sheer numbers, livestock use is far more significant. It’s a simple scientific fact that the more antibiotics are used — especially prolonged use at low doses as in factory farms — the more antibiotic-resistant microbes will become. Bacteria and viruses are also notoriously promiscuous, swapping genes across species and even across genera, creating what the Johns Hopkins researchers call “reservoirs of resistance.” “In some pathogens, selection for resistance also results in increased virulence,” they note. In other cases, otherwise harmless microbes can transfer resistance genes to pathogenic species.
There also are indications that factory farm conditions make animals more likely to excrete pathogenic microbes — suggesting another mechanism by which conversion to more humane farming methods would offer greater protection for human health.
Routes of Transmission
Most so-called bio-containment procedures for confinement livestock operations are more concerned with protecting the crowded animals from disease outbreaks than from preventing human pathogens from escaping into the wider environment. As the report from the Pew Commission points out, every step in the industrial farm animal production system holds the potential for disease transmission, from transportation and manure handling, to meat processing and animal rendering.
The increasingly globalized nature of the farm animal production system means that live animals, as well as fresh and frozen meat, are constantly crossing international borders, ensuring that diseases present in one location will soon spread elsewhere. But the biggest transmission route is waste: Confined livestock operations in the United States produce three times as much waste each year as our country’s entire human population — and yet all that manure is much more loosely regulated and handled than human waste. Antibiotic-resistant microbes, as well as the antibiotics themselves, are now widely present as environmental contaminants, with unknown consequences for everything from soil microorganisms to people. Canada’s largest waterborne disease outbreak, which infected 1,346 people and killed six, was traced to runoff from livestock farms into a town’s water supply. The U.S. Geological Survey found antimicrobial residues in 48 percent of 139 streams tested nationwide from 1999 to 2000. Other studies have detected resistant bacteria in the air up to 30 meters upwind and 150 meters downwind of industrial hog facilities.
A wealth of evidence links industrial meat and poultry directly with foodborne illness. When dioxin-contaminated chicken feed led to the removal from the market of all chicken and eggs in Belgium for several weeks in June of 1999, doctors there noted a 40 percent decline in the number of human Campylobacter infections. Repeated studies have concluded that as much as 80 percent of retail supermarket chicken in the United States is contaminated with Campylobacter. Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that Salmonella-contaminated eggs caused 180,000 cases of sickness in the United States in 2000. E. coli O157:H7 is blamed for 73,000 illnesses in this country each year, including about 2,000 hospitalizations and 60 deaths.
Although thorough cooking and careful handling can minimize your risks, antibiotic resistance raises the stakes when someone gets ill: “One in two human cases of Campylobacter, and one in five cases of Salmonella are now antibiotic-resistant,” says Steve Roach, public health program director for the Food Animal Concerns Trust and a member of the executive committee for the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition. “And when you have antibiotic resistance, you have more complications, more blood infections, more mortality.”
In fact, public health experts are beginning to suspect that a whole host of infections not previously thought of as food-related may ultimately be linked to the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture. Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, for example, traced a multi-state outbreak of urinary tract infections among women in 1999 and 2000 to contamination with a single strain of drug-resistant E. coli found in cows. Dr. Lee Riley, lead author of a paper on the findings published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, cautioned that the findings indicated that “the problem of foodborne disease is much greater in scope than we had ever previously thought.”
And then there’s methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Previously confined largely to hospitals, MRSA is now killing more people in the United States each year than HIV/AIDS. A series of recent studies in Europe have demonstrated a strong causal link between MRSA and intensive pig farming in the Netherlands, Germany and France. Little or no data are available on MRSA in animals in the United States, but the bacterium is widely present on pig farms in Canada, which sells millions of live pigs to the United States annually, so it seems pretty likely it’s in U.S. pig factories, too.
All in all, the CDC reports that 2 million people in the United States now contract an infection each year while in the hospital. Of those, a staggering 90,000 die — a toll higher than that from diabetes. Numbers such as that are prompting some medical investigators to suggest that we may be entering a “post-antibiotic era,” one in which (as a paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2007 put it) “there would be no effective antibiotics available for treating many life-threatening infections in humans.”
Connections such as these aren’t always easy to prove, however, especially for drugs that have already been in widespread use for decades, which is one reason why regulations to reign in the non-therapeutic use of antimicrobials have so far been largely lacking in the United States. The pending approval of an antibiotic called cefquinome to treat respiratory diseases in cattle offered a recent test case. Cefquinome is similar to cefepime, a last-resort antibiotic used to treat serious infections in people. (Both are fourth-generation cephalosporins, one of the small number of new antibiotics developed in recent years.) The FDA’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association, recommended against approval, warning that using cefquinome for animals would almost certainly render cefepime less effective for humans. But the FDA has apparently caved to industry pressure, claiming it lacks the authority to deny the drug companies’ request.
The Way Forward
Fortunately, there is a better way. No one wants high-quality food to be unaffordable, but increasingly it appears that as a human species we need to strike a better balance between cheap food and safe food. Sweden and Denmark have led the way over the past two decades in the development of commercial farming methods that minimize antibiotic use. Alternative management strategies include improving animals’ diets, changing weaning practices for pigs, cleaning facilities thoroughly in between groups and being more careful about mixing animals coming from different locations.
Scandinavian producers weren’t necessarily happy when their countries’ ban on non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics was put in place, but they’ve come to realize that they can still run profitable operations without them. Researchers in this country have shown that the same is true here: In 2006, a team at Johns Hopkins used data from poultry giant Perdue to show that the small advantage in weight gain associated with non-therapeutic antibiotic use was canceled out by the cost of the drugs. Organic farmers in many parts of the world have also shown that livestock can be raised profitably and humanely without the use of antibiotics.
“This is not a necessary problem,” says Lance Price, scientific advisor for Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future. “If you look at all the stakeholders in this equation — you and me, the doctors and hospitals, the producers — everyone but the drug companies can entertain alternatives. The only group that stands to lose from a more responsible use of antibiotics is the drug companies.”
A bill introduced in Congress in 2007, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, was one attempt to address these issues. Sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the only microbiologist in Congress, and Senate Health Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the bill would have withdrawn approvals for feed-additive use of seven classes of antibiotics of value to human medicine and required producers of agricultural antibiotics to provide data to public health officials on the usage of the drugs they sell.
The costs associated with continuing industrial farm animal production are enormous. If it’s allowed to continue, industrial production as currently practiced could eventually eliminate a lot of other farming options (in addition to making a lot of us sick). As one Midwestern organic farmer explained to me, it’s simply not possible to raise pigs organically if you live too close to a confinement facility: The pathogen pressure is too intense. “Iowa has become a sink for pig diseases,” he said. They’re just in the air, and you can’t avoid them.
5 Nasty Microbes Linked to Factory Farming
Campylobacter: This is the most common cause of foodborne diarrheal illness in the United States, causing an estimated 2 million cases each year. Most don’t require medical treatment, but a small number (approximately 50 per year) end in death. Chicken and turkey are the usual sources: Studies have shown that most conventional chicken is contaminated when it leaves the processing plant. Rising numbers of Campylobacter infections resistant to a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones led the FDA, in 2000, to seek to ban fluoroquinolone use in U.S. poultry production. The ban was held up in court by drug maker Bayer, but was finally put in place in 2005.
MRSA: Staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria widely present in our environment and usually harmless, but in susceptible individuals it can cause life-threatening infections. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA (pronounced “mir-sah”), used to be primarily a problem in hospitals, but these days, cases of MRSA are increasingly likely to be “community-acquired,” and evidence suggests that factory farms are a source. MRSA can be spread by human or animal carriers with no signs of illness; a recent study found that nearly half of Dutch pig farmers, and 39 percent of pigs in Dutch slaughterhouses, were carriers of MRSA.
Salmonella: This is another bacteria causing frequent and sometimes serious foodborne illness, with an estimated 1.4 million U.S. cases each year, including 18,000 hospitalizations and 600 deaths. Salmonella can contaminate beef, poultry, eggs and even vegetables. Antibiotic-resistant Salmonella is on the rise: One strain, known as DT104, is resistant to five major antibiotics used in humans.
E. coli O157:H7: Most Escherichia coli bacteria are harmless, but a few strains, including the notorious O157:H7, can be deadly. Ground beef is the most common contaminated food source for people, but as the spinach scare of 2006 showed, other foods can also be affected. The toxic strains are linked to conditions in beef feedlots.
Enterococcus: Enterococci are a widespread group of intestinal bacteria that can cause serious infections in other parts of the body. Antibiotic resistance is a major concern with Enterococcus faecium, the strain most commonly associated with illness in people. In Europe, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) is a widespread environmental contaminant, where its emergence has been linked to agricultural use of avoparcin, an antibiotic closely related to vancomycin. In the United States, VRE is more often found in hospitals, and doctors are running out of treatment options: About 4 percent of VRE patients no longer respond to the antibiotic Synercid, a last-defense drug which is unfortunately related to virginiamycin, widely used in U.S. animal agriculture.
What You Can Do
Reduce the amount of meat in your diet. Industrial farm animal production is driven by rising global demand for meat. Healthy protein alternatives include whole grains, beans, nuts and dairy products. Think of meat more as a seasoning (as in soups and stews), not an essential, three-meals-a-day main course.
When you do eat meat, buy from local farmers practicing humane, sustainable methods. Seek out meat and dairy products labeled as “raised without antibiotics,” and tell your local market manager you’d like to see more such products on store shelves.
Contact your Congressional delegation and ask them to support legislation to limit antibiotics in livestock feed, such as the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, introduced to Congress in 2007.
Friday, February 20, 2009
All tangled up | The Intention Experiment
All tangled up
February 20th, 2009 by Lynne McTaggart
The hardest thing to get your mind around with quantum physics is that the smallest units of the universe like electrons or photons aren’t a solid and stable thing, but a potential of any one of its future selves – or what is known by physicists as a ‘superposition’, or sum, of all probabilities. It’s all its possible selves – all at the same time.
At its most elemental, physical matter isn’t solid and stable – indeed, isn’t an anything yet.
Tangled by entanglement
Another strange feature of quantum physics is a feature called ‘non-locality’, also poetically referred to as ‘quantum entanglement’. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr discovered that once subatomic particles such as electrons or photons are in contact, they remain aware of and influenced by each other instantaneously over any distance forever, despite the absence of the usual things that physicists understand are responsible for influence, such as an exchange of force or energy.
When entangled, the actions – for instance, the magnetic orientation – of one will always influence the other in the same or the opposite direction, no matter how far they are separated.
Modern physicists have demonstrated decisively that once two subatomic particles have connected, the measurement of one photon instantaneously affected the position of the second photon. The two photons continued to talk to each other and whatever happened to one was identical to, or very opposite of, what happened to the other. Today, even the most conservative physicists accept non-locality as a strange feature of subatomic reality.
Although modern physicists now accept these effects as a given feature of the quantum world, they console themselves by maintaining that this strange, counter-intuitive property of the subatomic universe does not apply to anything bigger than a photon or an electron or to anything alive. The prevailing view is that quantum effects are only seen in laboratories with non-living systems at temperatures close to absolute zero.
Once things gets to the level of atoms and molecules, to the hot and wet world of the living organism — which in the world of physics is termed ‘macroscopic’ — the universe starts behaving itself again, according to predictable, measurable, Newtonian laws.
At the heart of biology
However, the latest evidence demonstrates that quantum effects like entanglement could be at the very heart of biological processes. A multi-center study carried out by the University of California at Berkeley. Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri and the Institute of Physics of Charles University in the Czech Republic, discovered that quantum processes inside of green sulfur bacteria drives the essential process of converting solar energy into oxygen and food.
The researchers tracked the workings of the protein network connecting the external solar collectors, or chlorosomes, to energy centers inside each cell by hitting these proteins with ultrafast laser pulses and following the trail of the light through the cell structure and into its reaction centers, where the conversion of light into oxygen and carbohydrates takes place.
To the amazement of the researchers, the light traveled in several directions at once – much as an electron does when travelling undetected in its superposition state. The researchers believe that this energy in a sense ‘tries out’ various pathways before finally choosing the most efficient.
This stunning finding suggests that the most basic and fundamental of all biological processes, responsible for most of life on earth in the form of oxygen supply and food source, is driven by a quantum process.
Quantum green tea
Another study by a group from the Autonomous University of Barcelona discovered that the antioxidant effects of green tea, which counteract the effects of free radicals, have to do with an effect in which, electrons in a molecule somehow are able to jump over and adhere to a second molecule, even though the laws of classical physics says that electrons are bound together too tightly ever to do such a thing.
This phenomenon of jumping ship from one molecule to the next is known as ‘quantum tunneling’. The Spanish researchers have discovered that electrons from the antioxidants, called catechins, in the tea engage in a mopping up exercise of free radicals, which produce an extra electron. The catechin electrons are able to tunnel to a free radical electron, binding it up and preventing it from damaging cells in the body.
In fact, entanglement is now easy to achieve in large ‘macroscopic’ systems in the lab. Physicist Vlatko Vedral of the University of Leeds, working with a team from Portugal and Austria, was able to show that photons from a laser can be entangled with the crystal lattice of a mirror and that this relationship would persist at high temperatures.
Tied up in the Canaries
In several flamboyant gestures, the famous Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger and his team have most recently entangled a pair of photons between two islands in the Canaries separated by 144 km metres of sea. Zeilinger and his co-workers have also transferred money securely between an Austrian Bank and Vienna City Hall using pairs of entangled photons produced by a laser and distributed via optical fibers. They even showed that non-local links could be established in space by bouncing laser pulses off a satellite to a receiving station on Earth.
The implications of these discoveries are staggering. They suggest that scientists must drastically modify their understanding of reality, particularly biological reality.
By accepting these quantum effects as a natural facet of nature we are acknowledging that two of the bedrocks on which our world view rests are wrong: that influence only occurs over time and distance, and that particles, and indeed the things that are made up of particles, only exist independently of each other.
They suggest that we have to ask ourselves a very fundamental question, perhaps the most fundamental of all: does anything exist before we perform a measurement on it? Or to put that another way, if quantum entities, which are so impossible to define before measurements are taken, drive all our basic life processes, does anything exist as an actual something independently of us?
Suddenly the idea that thoughts can affect the physical world doesn’t seem so strange.
Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence? -- Davis 44 (1): 15 -- HortScience
Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence? -- Davis 44 (1): 15 -- HortScience: "Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition: What Is the Evidence?
Donald R. Davis1,2,3
Biochemical Institute, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712; and Bio-Communications Research Institute, 3100 North Hillside Avenue, Wichita, KS 67219
Three kinds of evidence point toward declines of some nutrients in fruits and vegetables available in the United States and the United Kingdom: 1) early studies of fertilization found inverse relationships between crop yield and mineral concentrations—the widely cited 'dilution effect'; 2) three recent studies of historical food composition data found apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables and perhaps fruits; one study also evaluated vitamins and protein with similar results; and 3) recent side-by-side plantings of low- and high-yield cultivars of broccoli and grains found consistently negative correlations between yield and concentrations of minerals and protein, a newly recognized genetic dilution effect. Studies of historical food composition data are inherently limited, but the other methods can focus on single crops of any kind,"
Donald R. Davis1,2,3
Biochemical Institute, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712; and Bio-Communications Research Institute, 3100 North Hillside Avenue, Wichita, KS 67219
Three kinds of evidence point toward declines of some nutrients in fruits and vegetables available in the United States and the United Kingdom: 1) early studies of fertilization found inverse relationships between crop yield and mineral concentrations—the widely cited 'dilution effect'; 2) three recent studies of historical food composition data found apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables and perhaps fruits; one study also evaluated vitamins and protein with similar results; and 3) recent side-by-side plantings of low- and high-yield cultivars of broccoli and grains found consistently negative correlations between yield and concentrations of minerals and protein, a newly recognized genetic dilution effect. Studies of historical food composition data are inherently limited, but the other methods can focus on single crops of any kind,"
What Are NutriCircles?
What Are NutriCircles?: "NutriCircles were developed at the University of Texas, Austin by Donald R. Davis in collaboration with Roger J. Williams for his book, The Wonderful World Within You (1977, 1998). They show the nutritional quality of foods in a diagram that is far easier to grasp than a long list of numbers. They illustrate how Nature helps us get the nutrients we need, if we cooperate with her in our food choices. Similarly, they help us understand the value of limiting certain man-made foods that unfortunately dominate most Western diets.
NutriCircles are bar graphs bent into a circle so that the bars are like the petals on a flower. Each bar represents one nutrient in a food, and its length shows the amount of that nutrient. The amounts are expressed in amounts per calorie (known as nutrient density). This method shows the basic quality of a food, which does not depend on serving size."
NutriCircles are bar graphs bent into a circle so that the bars are like the petals on a flower. Each bar represents one nutrient in a food, and its length shows the amount of that nutrient. The amounts are expressed in amounts per calorie (known as nutrient density). This method shows the basic quality of a food, which does not depend on serving size."
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Chakra Chart: Chakras versus Endocrine Glands | Bright Eyes
Chakra Chart: Chakras versus Endocrine Glands
Here is an incredible chakra chart with endocrine glands shown along:
As you can see in it, chakras are shown to have very close proximity with the hormonal glands responsible for secreting hormones so essential to keep the vital body functions running in a smooth way keeping the two bright eyes intact on our face!
These are the associations:
- The root chakra and the testes responsible for producing sperm (spermatozoa) male sex hormones including testosterone in the male body
- The sacral chakra and the ovaries responsible for producing ovum in the female body
- The solar plexus chakra and the pancreas plus adrenal glands responsible for producing insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin plus adrenaline respectively.
- The heart chakra and the thymus gland responsible for producing T cell repertoire
- The throat chakra and the thyroid gland responsible for producing thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3)
- The third eye chakra and the pineal gland responsible for producing melatonin
- The crown chakra and the pituitary gland responsible for producing oxytocin, antidiuretic hormone and melanocyte-stimulating hormone
We shall be able to draw important inferences from these associations in our posts to come.
Chakras and the Body Mind Interface:
What's a Chakra?
Chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning wheel, or vortex, and it refers to each of the seven energy centers of which our consciousness, our energy system, is composed.
These chakras, or energy centers, function as pumps or valves, regulating the flow of energy through our energy system. The functioning of the chakras reflects decisions we make concerning how we choose to respond to conditions in our life. We open and close these valves when we decide what to think, and what to feel, and through which perceptual filter we choose to experience the world around us.
The chakras are not physical. They are aspects of consciousness in the same way that the auras are aspects of consciousness. The chakras are more dense than the auras, but not as dense as the physical body. They interact with the physical body through two major vehicles, the endocrine system and the nervous system. Each of the seven chakras is associated with one of the seven endocrine glands, and also with a group of nerves called a plexus. Thus, each chakra can be associated with particular parts of the body and particular functions within the body controlled by that plexus or that endocrine gland associated with that chakra.
All of your senses, all of your perceptions, all of your possible states of awareness, everything it is possible for you to experience, can be divided into seven categories. Each category can be associated with a particular chakra. Thus, the chakras represent not only particular parts of your physical body, but also particular parts of your consciousness.
When you feel tension in your consciousness, you feel it in the chakra associated with that part of your consciousness experiencing the stress, and in the parts of the physical body associated with that chakra. Where you feel the stress depends upon why you feel the stress. The tension in the chakra is detected by the nerves of the plexus associated with that chakra, and transmitted to the parts of the body controlled by that plexus. When the tension continues over a period of time, or to a particular level of intensity, the person creates a symptom on the physical level.
The symptom speaks a language that reflects the idea that we each create our reality, and the metaphoric significance of the symptom becomes apparent when the symptom is described from that point of view. Thus, rather than saying, "I can't see," the person would describe it as keeping themselves from seeing something. "I can't walk," means the person has been keeping themselves from walking away from a situation in which they are unhappy. And so on.
The symptom served to communicate to the person through their body what they had been doing to themselves in their consciousness. When the person changes something about their way of being, getting the message communicated by the symptom, the symptom has no further reason for being, and it can be released, according to whatever the person allows themselves to believe is possible.
We believe everything is possible.
We believe that anything can be healed. It's just a question of how to do it.
Understanding the chakras allows you to understand the relationship between your consciousness and your body, and to thus see your body as a map of your consciousness. It gives you a better understanding of yourself and those around you.
What else is there?
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