In September 2005, Uhlin took a capsule of acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol and marketed in the United States as Tylenol) to bring down a fever. The combination of her virus and the drug, however, produced a rare condition known as Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. When she woke up the next day, blisters were spreading all over her body, including her face.

"It was terrifying, because at the time they didn't know what was wrong with me or what would happen to me," she said. "When I looked in the mirror … I didn't recognize myself."

Uhlin's skin began to burn, scab, blister and fall off on her face, arms, back, chest and stomach. Her lips actually grew together, making it impossible for her to open her mouth.

"It felt like something was crawling around under my skin, I was in total shock – it was like something out of a horror film," she said. "I couldn't believe what was happening. I had taken Paracetamol many times before."

After four years of treatment, Uhlin's skin has mostly returned to normal, but she still suffers from lingering effects of the disease, such as sensitivity to bright sunlight. She must still take eye drops daily.

Folke Sjoeberg, one of her doctors, said she was lucky to recover as much as she did from the condition, which kills 40 percent of those that it afflicts.

"The condition is very uncommon and it strikes only one in a million people," he said. "With this condition you have to just let it run its course because there is no way to stop it. I'm very glad that Eva has done so well after all that happened."

So you would never flush dioxins into your water supply, right? If you use antibacterial soaps and other antibacterial products, you could be doing the equivalent of just that.

In 2003 and 2009, University of Minnesota civil engineering professor William Arnold and his colleague Kristopher McNeill published their discovery that the antibacterial agent triclosan, when exposed to sunlight, generates a specific group of four dioxins. Now, in a new study, a team of scientists from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology, Pace Analytical (Minneapolis), the Science Museum of Minnesota and Virginia Tech, have documented how triclosan is transformed into dioxins that are accumulating in the environment. This research, just published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, concludes dioxins originating from triclosan (found in many hand soaps, deodorants and dishwashing liquids) account for a huge increase in total dioxins now polluting Mississippi River sediments.

Efforts to cut down on dioxin contamination resulting from industrial pollution have been underway for several decades. However, the issue of triclosan in antibacterial consumer products has been virtually ignored. And the research team has found that over the last 30 years, while levels of all the other dioxins have dropped by 73 to 90 percent, the levels of dioxins derived from the antibacterial soap ingredient triclosan have risen by 200 to 300 percent.

For the new study, which was headed by Jeff Buth, a recent University of Minnesota Ph.D. graduate in chemistry, the researchers examined sediment samples from Lake Pepin, an enlargement of the Mississippi River located 120 miles downstream from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. They analyzed sediment cores (which contain a record of accumulated pollutants in the lake over the past 50 years) and checked for amounts of triclosan, the four dioxins derived from triclosan, and the entire family of dioxin chemicals.

The results? In the most current sediments, triclosan-derived dioxins account for about 30 percent of the total dioxin mass. "These four dioxins only come from triclosan. They didn't exist in Lake Pepin before triclosan was introduced," Dr. Arnold said in a statement to the media.

Triclosan was first added to commercial liquid hand soap in 1987. Four years later, nearly 80 percent of commercial liquid hand soaps contained it, the researchers noted. And what happens to this chemical when people use triclosan-containing products to wash their hands and dishes? About 96 percent of it ends up in residential drains, leading to large loads of triclosan-contaminated water that enters treatment plants.

Unfortunately, triclosan can not be completely removed during the wastewater treatment process. So when treated wastewater is released back into the environment, there's triclosan still in it and sunlight converts some of the triclosan (and related compounds) into dioxins.

That's how the triclosan and dioxins ended up in Lake Pepin sediments, the researchers explained. The chemicals stuck to organic particles in the river and then sank into sediment when they reached the calmer waters of the lake.

In addition to the environmental danger that arises from triclosan's ability to morph into dioxin, the chemical has also been linked to disruptions of hormonal function and may play a role in the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics — yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to address these concerns. In April, the FDA announced it would finally at least study the triclosan situation.

– Clove bud or lemongrass for numbing pain
– Chamomile or geranium for anti-inflammatory action
– Cinnamon or ginger for relieving pain by producing heat
– Lemon eucalyptus or lemon verbena for relieving pain through relaxation
– Sandalwood or tangerine for inducing sleep
– Peppermint or basil to inhale for headaches
– Marjoram or neroli to relieve stress
– Angelica or bergamot for depression
– Cardamom or jasmine to stimulate and make you alert
– Ylang ylang or rose to lower high blood pressure
– Thyme or garlic for powerful antibacterial agents
– Bay rum or geranium lavender for more gentle antibacterial oils
– Juniper or Melissa for treating viral infections

Lavender is the most popular of plants for its healing properties. It is a natural analgesic, anti depressant and anti inflammatory agent. Lavender originated in the Mediterranean basin but because of its fragrance and medicinal benefits, it has moved with migrating people and is now found worldwide. Lavender oil is the most important medical component of the plant and contains several distinct chemicals with healing properties that complement one another. It is one of the few essential oils that can be applied directly to the skin undiluted but should never be taken internally.

The most common way in which essential oils enter the body is through the nose and the skin. Oils absorbed through skin pores and hair follicles enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body. Because you smell the fragrances as the oil is rubbed on your skin, you can often benefit from both inhalation and the topical administration.

Smells are very important in our lives – they so often trigger memories of events in the past that we had almost forgotten. In addition, smells can initiate different physiological responses that can go so far as to affect our entire body and mental outlook and those healing properties in essential oils include the different smells produced.

The cost of making essentials oils is high, so most commercial product fragrances do not use the genuine article but rather those that are chemically synthesized. They might smell like the real thing but they will not have the healing properties – quite the reverse as many of the chemicals used may even be harmful by causing an allergic reaction.

Two treatment therapies that use essential oils for their healing properties are:

– Psycho Aromatherapy where essential oils are used to either stimulate or relax the brain. Some oils can have calming and tranquilizing effects while others are energizing. These oils can relieve depression, stress and anxiety and promote a general feeling of well being.

– Therapeutic Aromatherapy where essential oils treat medical conditions.

Whatever condition you might be suffering from, there may well be a healing natural oil product to treat it. These products are made from essential oils with all the healing properties that they bring. Such products are specially formulated to target a specific condition so there is no hit and miss. Essential oils are highly complex mixtures of often hundreds of individual aroma compounds so research, knowledge and experience are needed to get the perfect mix.

Importantly, the healing properties of essential oils have tremendous potential to reduce our reliance on pharmaceuticals with their synthetic ingredients and adverse side effects.

Statin drugs, in other words, harm far more people than they help.

Julia Hippisley-Cox and Carol Coupland led the study which examined data from over two million patients, including over 225,000 patients who were new statin drug users.

They found that for every 10,000 women being treated with statins, there were only 271 fewer cases of heart disease.

And yet, at the same time, the statin drugs caused 74 cases of liver damage, 23 cases of acute kidney failure, 39 cases of extreme muscle weakness and 307 cases of cataracts.

Statin drugs, in other words, helped 271 people but harmed 443 people. This demonstrates how they are wreaking havoc with the health of those who take them, causing damage that far outweighs any benefit they might offer.

Big Pharma's highly deceptive advertising implies that statin drugs help everyone who takes them. So if 10,000 people took the drugs, we're promised, heart attacks would be prevented in all 10,000 people. That's the implied message in the drug ads, anyway.

But this is just a wild exaggeration and distortion of the facts. Most drugs don't work on most people, and statin drugs only "work" on about 2.7% of those who take them. Yet they cause serious damage in about 4.4% of those who take them.

So if you take statin drugs, your odds of benefiting from them is less than 3 out of 100. But your odds of being harmed by them are more than 4 out of 100. For 96 out of 100 people, statin drugs do nothing except make the drug companies rich and pollute the waterways every time you flush the toilet.

Statin drugs, then, are basically a crap shoot with your health.

From the point of view of Big Pharma, they have the added benefit of causing other diseases that often result in yet more drugs or medical procedures being prescribed. Kidney dialysis makes big money for hospitals, by the way. It's a multi-billion-dollar business all by itself. Statin drugs are therefore a way for the sick-care industry to recruit new patients into kidney dialysis, knowing that some percentage of statin drug users are going to end up with full-blown kidney failure.

What's really interesting about all this is how easy it is to fool doctors into prescribing statin drugs. Doctors mistakenly think these are miracle drugs, but they're never read the research. They've been convinced by drug reps, misleading medical journal articles and Big Pharma advertising — and they bought it!

Mainstream doctors, you see, are perhaps the most gullible people on the planet. They'll gladly prescribe a drug that harms more people than it helps — by the millions — because they can be almost effortlessly swayed into pushing poison pills through "science babble" language used by drug companies to promote their pills.

Doctors are literally walking around today thinking statin drugs are such miracle lifesavers that some doctors openly talked about dripping the drug into the public water supply! That's how convinced they are about the drug's benefits. They think everyone should be taking statins whether they need them or not!

It's downright loony. But that's characteristic of western medicine, isn't it? Proclaim your poison to be "miracle medicine" while utterly ignoring the truth that those drugs harm far more people than they help (and they simply don't work on more than 90% of people who take them).

The Stain Scam

Statin drugs are a scam, plain and simple, and the doctors who prescribe them are puppets used by Big Pharma to sell high-profit drugs to people who for the most part won't even benefit from them. That this research exposing the truth about statin drugs even appeared in the British Medical Journal is a minor miracle all by itself, by the way. But it does indicate that the wall of lies constructed about statins by Big Pharma is starting to crack.

If the truth about statins were openly known, the drugs wouldn't be prescribed to anyone, and drug companies would be sued for billions of dollars for their false advertising and marketing manipulations.

Until that happens, just remember this: Any doctor who recommends a statin drug is a con man drug pusher. If they don't have the honesty to research the truth about these drugs and stop prescribing them, they certainly cannot be trusted with your health. If they're pushing statin drugs on you, they're really just working for Big Pharma, not for you, and they're not interested in real science and the real impacts of drugs on patients.

It brings up another hugely important question in modern medicine: Why don't doctors have the capability to question the false beliefs of their own industry? As you might have guessed, that's the topic of another story altogether.

It should come as no surprise that the biggest defenders of processed sugar and HFCS are the industries that produce them. Of course the Corn Refiners Association is now spending big money marketing HFCS as safe – after all, it is one of their primary cash cows. Some of this group's untruthful claims include alleging that HFCS is natural – because it comes from corn – and that it is safe in moderation.

Most people with even the slightest bit of understanding into the subject wholly disagree with such claims. So does the myriad of scientific studies that indicate that processed sweeteners like HFCS are partially responsible for America's growing disease and obesity epidemic.

Even the American Heart Association agrees that excessive sugar is harmful, as do many nutrition experts who recognize the dangers associated with excessive sugar consumption. There is still a problem, though. The battle is mainly between processed sugar and HFCS and whether or not one is healthier than the other, not whether there is a difference between highly-refined and natural sugars.

Most of the Western world seems to adhere to an ideology that makes no differentiation between refined and unrefined, but rather assesses health based on the number of calories a person consumes. Many so-called nutrition experts agree, claiming that low-to-moderate intake of sugar and HFCS should not be a problem as long as calorie-intake is kept in the proper range.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it fails to assess whether or not a highly-processed substance in-and-of-itself poses health problems in spite of its caloric content. A calorie is a generic measure of energy, and the way the body processes food is far more complex than a simple measure of calories.

The truth of the matter is that both refined white sugar and HFCS are harmful to health, whether consumed moderately or in excess. Obviously the more one consumes, the worse off he is, but the point is that the debate is focusing entirely on the wrong hypothesis.

The best forms of sugar are the ones that occur naturally in things like fruit and vegetables. And when a recipe calls for an added sweetener, natural options like stevia, raw agave and coconut sugar are far superior to refined sugars because they contain vitamins, minerals and nutrients that are otherwise stripped away during refining. These co-factors contribute to the digestion and assimilation of sugars, keeping the blood sugar at proper levels. When these are not present, the body is unable to process the sugar properly, leading to all sorts of health problems.

Rather than model themselves after Big Tobacco by defending their harmful products, the refined sugar industries should confess that their products are harmful and begin investing in natural alternatives. But since they likely never will, health-conscious individuals can continue educating their friends and neighbors about the truth, and steering consumer preference away from the toxic sweeteners that currently dominate the mainstream food and beverage markets.

In 2009, several petitioners asked the FDA to reconsider their stance on mercury fillings, reversing their stance back to their original assessment of toxicity.³ Signing petitioners included Moms Against Mercury and several individuals holding various positions in the medical and health care industry as well as private citizens, all through the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT).

They cite the FDA`s use of an "ill-defined and unsubstantiated estimate of absorbed mercury exposure from dental amalgam of 1 to 5 [micrograms]/day that supposedly relates to the presence of between 7 and 10 amalgam fillings." The petition shows that the FDA's conclusions from that report were wrong and that further conclusions taken from another World Health Organization (WHO) report were also mis-represented in the FDA`s findings.

It is well-documented that amalgam fillings give off mercury vapors, even after decades of service as a cavity filling. A video of mercury vapor being given off of an extracted tooth when it is submitted to water at about the same heat level of a cup of coffee or tea shows that mercury fillings are toxic for a very long time.⁴

In fact, many dentists, while they understand the dangers of an amalgam spill in their office, are unaware that they and their staff are exposed to mercury vapors and potential poisoning every time they handle both the fillings they're putting into teeth and the mouths of patients who already have them. The extraction and disposal of existing mercury fillings has been linked to at least one patient who developed Parkinson's Disease and became wheelchair bound.³

Another study involving 9 velvet monkeys was conducted in Denmark. In that study, three of the monkeys were given amalgam fillings, three were given amalgam bone implants, and three were left untouched as controls. A year later, tissues in the monkeys showed that the fillings deposited mercury in several organs, including the spinal ganglia, adrenal, liver, pituitary, kidneys, and more. The monkeys in the control group had only trace amounts of mercury in their bodies.³

Mercury has been linked to several neurological disorders including Alzheimer`s, autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson`s Disease, and others. Other studies have been done into the links between mercury and other heavy metals and their reactive properties with one another.

In future articles here on NaturalNews, this citizen journalist will be exploring those other mercury-metal links and sources such as Thimerosal, fish, dentistry, and more.

Resources:
1 – FDA Reluctantly Admits Mercury Fillings Have Neurotoxic Effects on Children by David Gutierrez, NaturalNews

2 – FDA Declares Mercury Amalgam Fillings Safe for All by Mike Adams, NaturalNews

3 – Petition for Reconsideration Moms Against Mercury, et al.
Special thanks to Natural News reader Robert Reeves for sending the petition to us.

4 – Mercury Vapor From Dental Fillings Captured on Camera (video) by Mike Adams, NaturalNews