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Vaccination Rights Attorney Pat Finn Threatened With Criminal Charges

by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Vaccine rights attorney Patricia Finn is being targeted by the Ninth Judicial District of New York State, which has threatened to strip her of her license to practice law and even file criminal charges against her. Finn is one of several "vaccine rights" attorneys across America who helps parents assert their rights to protect their children from potentially deadly vaccines. She's considered a hero by many, but a villain by the status quo for daring to stand up against the vaccine-pimping medical police state that exists in America today.

Vaccine Protocol

I personally interviewed Patricia Finn for InfoWars Nightly News last night (February 27, 2012), and during that interview I saw and read the documents that contain the charges being leveled against her.

One document described her vaccine rights advocacy as "threatening the public interest," asserting that her helping parents legally and ethically avoid toxic vaccines somehow puts the public at risk. This accusation makes absolutely no logical sense, of course, given that even the vaccine pushers claim their vaccines offer absolute and total immunity against infectious disease. Therefore, how can an unvaccinated child ever threaten the health of a vaccinated child?

New York demands Patricia Finn surrender her list of clients

Perhaps even more alarmingly, a letter outlining the various charges against Patricia Finn included the demand that she immediately surrender her complete list of clients to the judiciary. When I saw this, it immediately set off alarm bells. This is not merely a gross violation of attorney/client privilege; it's also a thinly-veiled attempt for the New York judiciary to terrorize the parents who have sought legal help in opting out of dangerous vaccines.

Furthermore, it could serve as the starting point for New York State to dispatch CPS workers to the homes of all of Finn's clients, where their children might be kidnapped by CPS and sold into sex slavery (this is a common behavior of CPS workers across the country, where low-income children simply "disappear" into the system and suffer ongoing sexual abuse by state workers or even high-paying clients, similar to what happened at Penn State). I don't have the space to go into all the evidence that CPS functions as a child kidnapping and sex slavery ring, but the organization isn't called "Communist Pedophile Services" for no reason.

Patricia Finn told me during the InfoWars Nightly News interview that she would absolutely refuse to turn over the list of her clients, and that the judiciary even asking for such a list was a violation of state law. She said she would rather lose her law license than betray the trust of her clients.

Watch Patti Finn speak at the recent WV rally in this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBTLe4BT7i4

Follow more updates from Patricia Finn at:
www.facebook.com/PatriciaFinnAttorney
www.PatriciaFinnAttorney.com

The Wakefield Effect
In an InfoWars.com article written by Curt Linderman, Patricia describes the events that led to her being targeted for "legal termination" by New York:

This morning I was served with papers to suspend my license to practice law. The charges are bogus and come on the heels of my address to the Parental Rights Rally in WV. I am also being ordered to disclose the names of people I represent who do not vaccinate… I refuse. I would go to jail first before I give out the names. Please contact all pro vaccine choice organizations and the media… know the truth! I call this harassment the Wakefield Effect!/

The "Wakefield effect," of course, refers to the outrageous and illegal censorship and oppression dished out to anyone who takes a firm stand against the vaccine industry's lies. Merely questioning the mythology of vaccines makes you an instant target for endless ridicule and humiliation followed by a well-planned media smear campaign. Dr. Wakefield, who was viciously slandered by the British Medical Journal, has already filed a lawsuit against the BMJ to clear his name.

By the way, the author of that story on InfoWars, Curt Linderman, has just launched a new radio show on NaturalNews Radio entitled "Linderman Unleashed."

Robert Scott Bell interviewed Patricia Finn on NaturalNews Radio
NaturalNews Radio host Robert Scott Bell also interviewed Patricia Finn yesterday in what turned out to be a stunning audio report. You can download and listen to the entire audio interview at the RSB archives on NaturalNews Radio:

Highly relevant: Vaccines Armed and Dangerous
Robert Scott Bell and Jon Rappoport, by the way, have just published an astonishing audio course that completely dismantles the lies and mythconceptions of the vaccine industry. This audio course, which I have been listening to myself, teaches you a wealth of information you need to know in order to protect yourself from vaccine zealots and zombies who mindlessly try to push toxic chemical injections on you and your children.

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10 Symptoms of Vitamin D Deficiency

by: Aurora Geib

(NaturalNews) Taking vitamin D while still young may be good for the body in the long run. Results from a study conducted by the University of Zurich have confirmed that sufficient amounts of vitamin D taken consistently are necessary to maintain bone health.

Vitamin D

Many people believe that maintaining healthy eating habits is enough, but only few foods naturally contain significant levels of vitamin D. According to Dr. Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, a faculty of UZH, in order to get adequate levels of vitamin D through diet alone, two servings of fatty fish like salmon or mackerel would have to be consumed every day. It is thus necessary to increase vitamin D levels in the body through sufficient sun exposure and supplementation in order to use the sunshine vitamin's full potential for maintaining proper body functioning.

This misconception about maintaining D levels through diet does have a degree of ground since vitamin D is not a stand alone vitamin. To perform many functions, vitamin D works in cooperation with other vitamins like magnesium, which can be found in leafy green vegetables such as spinach. This unique characteristic of vitamin D has contributed to the management of many chronic illnesses.

The many faces of vitamin D

Decades ago, health care professionals thought vitamin D was only good for keeping healthy bones and teeth. Recent advances in science, however, have put this vitamin in the spotlight by revealing its multifaceted role in the proper functioning of the human body and its ability to lower the risk of illnesses not formerly associated with it.

Despite the recent revelations about the potential of vitamin D, it appears that not everyone appreciates this discovery. The current lifestyle of working indoors has contributed to the growing number of vitamin D deficiency cases worldwide. This is compounded by the fact that not everyone is aware that he or she may be vitamin D deficient.

The best way to discover vitamin D deficiency is to take a blood test that will measure the level of the vitamin in your blood. You can either ask your doctor to administer the test or buy a home test kit do the test yourself. However, you are certainly vitamin D deficient if you have any of the following ailments, and you need to consult with your doctor regarding your preventive, as well as curative, options as soon as possible.

Am I vitamin D deficient?

1.) The flu – In a study published in the Cambridge Journals, it was discovered that vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory diseases. An intervention study conducted showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children.

2.) Muscle weakness – According to Michael F. Holick, a leading vitamin D expert, muscle weakness is usually caused by vitamin D deficiency because for skeletal muscles to function properly, their vitamin D receptors must be sustained by vitamin D.

3.) Psoriasis – In a study published by the UK PubMed central, it was discovered that synthetic vitamin D analogues were found useful in the treatment of psoriasis.

4.) Chronic kidney disease – According to Holick, patients with advanced chronic kidney diseases (especially those requiring dialysis) are unable to make the active form of vitamin D. These individuals need to take 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 or one of its calcemic analogues to support calcium metabolism, decrease the risk of renal bone disease and regulate parathyroid hormone levels.

5.) Diabetes – A study conducted in Finland was featured in Lancet.com in which 10,366 children were given 2000 international units (IU)/day of vitamin D3 per day during their first day of life. The children were monitored for 31 years and in all of them, the risk of type 1 diabetes was reduced by 80 percent.

6.) Asthma – Vitamin D may reduce the severity of asthma attacks. Research conducted in Japan revealed that asthma attacks in school children were significantly lowered in those subjects taking a daily vitamin D supplement of 1200 IU a day.

7.) Periodontal disease – Those suffering from this chronic gum disease that causes swelling and bleeding gums should consider raising their vitamin D levels to produce defensins and cathelicidin, compounds that contain microbial properties and lower the number of bacteria in the mouth.

8.) Cardiovascular disease – Congestive heart failure is associated with vitamin D deficiency. Research conducted at Harvard University among nurses found that women with low vitamin D levels (17 ng/m [42 nmol/L]) had a 67 percent increased risk of developing hypertension.

9.) Schizophrenia and Depression – These disorders have been linked to vitamin D deficiency. In a study, it was discovered that maintaining sufficient vitamin D among pregnant women and during childhood was necessary to satisfy the vitamin D receptor in the brain integral for brain development and mental function maintenance in later life.

10.) Cancer – Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC discovered a connection between high vitamin D intake and reduced risk of breast cancer. These findings, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, revealed that increased doses of the sunshine vitamin were linked to a 75 percent reduction in overall cancer growth and 50 percent reduction in tumor cases among those already having the disease. Of interest was the capacity of vitamin supplementation to help control the development and growth of breast cancer specially estrogen-sensitive breast cancer.

Prevention is proactive

These various health conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency need not be something to fear. A proactive approach to prevention can assist in the avoidance of the many chronic diseases associated with vitamin D deficiency. For one, thousands of dollars can be saved, not to mention the peace of mind, simply at the cost of taking a walk under the sun. Save the umbrellas for the rainy days.

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Confirmed Once Again: Statins Likely Harm The Heart

by Sayer Ji

New research published in the journal PLoS indicates that the use of the cholesterol-lowing class of drugs known as statins is associated with an increased prevalence of microalbuminuria, a well-known marker of vascular dysfunction, affecting both cardiovascular and kidney disease risk.

Cardiovascular Protocol

Microalbuminuria is known to double the risk for a cardiovascular event in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and is a marker for endothelial function; endothelial dysfunction may, in fact, be far more significant than elevated blood lipids in determining cardiovascular disease risk. This new finding therefore calls into question the justification for using statin drugs for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, which is presently the standard of care in the drug-base conventional medical model.

According to the study:

Microalbuminuria (MAU) is considered as a predictor or marker of cardiovascular and renal events. Statins are widely prescribed to reduce cardiovascular risk and to slow down progression of kidney disease. But statins may also generate tubular MAU. The current observational study evaluated the impact of statin use on the interpretation of MAU as a predictor or marker of cardiovascular or renal disease…
 
Use of statins is independently associated with MAU, even after adjusting for bias by indication to receive a statin.

This study confirms a growing body of research indicating that statin drugs are cardiotoxic. Examples of this cardiotoxicy are as follows:

  • Atorvastatin has been found to worsen ventricular diastolic function
  • Lovastatin has been found to make LDL cholesterol more susceptible to oxidation
  • Simvastatin-induced heart failure has been reported
  • Simvastatin-induced atrial fibrillation has been reported
  • Statin induced myocardial ischemia has been reported in animal studies

A review published in the journal Biofactors in 2004 found that the use of statin drugs may be resulting in coenzyme q10 depletion, and raised the possibility that this could be behind the congestive heart failure epidemic presently afflicting those in the United States.

Another more recent study published in the journal of Clinical Cardiology demonstrated that statin drugs weaken the heart muscle in humans. For additional information on this topic read the article on the topic below.

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Harvard Study: Pasteurized Milk From Industrial Dairies Linked To Cancer

by: Jonathan Benson

(NaturalNews) The truth has once again shaken the foundation of the 'American Tower of Babel' that is mainstream science, with a new study out of Harvard University showing that pasteurized milk product from factory farms is linked to causing hormone-dependent cancers. It turns out that the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) model of raising cows on factory farms churns out milk with dangerously high levels of estrone sulfate, an estrogen compound linked to testicular, prostate, and breast cancers.

Immune Booster Protocol

Dr. Ganmaa Davaasambuu, Ph.D., and her colleagues specifically identified "milk from modern dairy farms" as the culprit, referring to large-scale confinement operations where cows are milked 300 days of the year, including while they are pregnant. Compared to raw milk from her native Mongolia, which is extracted only during the first six months after cows have already given birth, pasteurized factory milk was found to contain up to 33 times more estrone sulfate.

Evaluating data from all over the world, Dr. Davaasambuu and her colleagues identified a clear link between consumption of such high-hormone milk, and high rates of hormone-dependent cancers. In other words, contrary to what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the conventional milk lobby would have you believe, processed milk from factory farms is not a health product, and is directly implicated in causing cancer.

"The milk we drink today is quite unlike the milk our ancestors were drinking" without apparent harm for 2,000 years, Dr. Davaasambuu is quoted as saying in the Harvard University Gazette. "The milk we drink today may not be nature's perfect food."

American government seeks to further perpetuate the lie that all milk is the same with egregious new provisions in 2012 Farm Bill

Meanwhile, raw, grass-fed, organic milk from cows milked at the proper times is linked to improving digestion, healing autoimmune disorders, and boosting overall immunity, which can help prevent cancer. Though you will never hear any of this from the mainstream media, all milk is not the same — the way a cow is raised, when it is milked, and how its milk is handled and processed makes all the difference in whether or not the end product promotes health or death.
Of particular concern are new provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill that create even more incentives for farmers to produce the lowest quality, and most health-destroying, type of milk possible. Rather than incentivize grazing cows on pastures, which allows them to feed on grass, a native food that their systems can process, the government would rather incentivize confined factory farming methods that force cows to eat genetically-modified (GM) corn and other feed, which makes them sick.

As it currently stands, the government already provides incentives for farmers to stop pasturing their animals, instead confining them in cages as part of a Total Confinement Dairy Model, aka factory farms. But the 2012 Farm Bill will take this a step further by outlawing "component pricing" for milk, which involves allowing farmers to sell milk with higher protein and butterfat at a higher price.

Allowing farmers to sell higher quality milk at a higher price provides an incentive for them to improve the living conditions on their farms, and milk better cow breeds. But the U.S. government would rather standardize all milk as being the same, and create a system where farmers continue to produce cancer-causing milk from sick cows for the millions of children to drink.

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Why The Law Forbids The Medicinal Use of Natural Substances

by Sayer Ji

According to the FDA’s legal definition, a drug is anything that “diagnoses, cures, mitigates, treats, or prevents a disease.”

The problem with this definition is that there are numerous substances, as readily available and benign as found on our spice racks, which have been proven by countless millennia of human experience to mitigate, prevent and in some cases cure disease, and which cannot be called drugs according to the FDA.

How can this be? Well, the FDA has assumed for itself Godlike power, requiring that its official approval be obtained before any substance can legally be used in the prevention and treatment of disease.  

The FDA’s legal-regulatory control therefore is totalitarian and Napoleonic in construct; what it does not explicitly permit as a medicine is implicitly forbidden.

Historically the FDA has required new drugs undergo expensive and elaborate multi-phased clinical trials, which are out of the grasp of any ordinary interest who might want to demonstrate the efficacy of a non-patentable (and therefore unprofitable) herb, food or spice.

The average out-of-pocket cost for obtaining a new drug approval is US$ 802 million dollars,[1] and therefore an investor putting capital into bringing to market a substance that does not lend itself to market exclusivity and therefore cannot produce a return on investment, is committing economic suicide, if not also breaking the law. The investor actually has a legally-binding fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to make a profit. And therefore, capital will not flow into any would-be commodity that can be produced or obtained with ease, including most things that grow freely on this Earth.

It is an interesting footnote in history that shortly after the Declaration of Independence, Congress declared that natural substances, e.g. water or salt, were God’s gift to mankind and that therefore products of nature should be limited in their patent protection. While this was a noble declaration, it has actually been used against those whose rights it would protect. It has forced private interests to synthetically alter natural substances — for instance the burgeoning biotech field of recombinant DNA technology, i.e. genetically modified organisms (GMOs) — for the sole reason that it guarantees them ownership/patent rights. 

In fact, a medical system that legally requires it make a profit threatens to destroy and/or incriminate itself if non-patented, non-profitable natural substances or therapies are employed. It also results in so much collateral damage to those it purports to serve that it could rightly be called a modern form of human sacrifice

As a result, instead of choosing prospective medicines logically: because they work, are easily accessible, and safe, billions of dollars flow in the exact opposite direction, capitalizing only those substances which are unnatural, and therefore while proprietary are almost invariably unsafe, and whose access and administration can be intensively controlled. 

Has The Attempt To Co-opt Medicine Through the Drug-Based Model Undone Itself? 

And yet, there is a silver lining to the story. Due to the fact that our bodies are ultimately constructed from the natural things (food, air and water), and obey very strict natural laws such as the well-known principle of chirality (handedness) – the fact that all amino acids in our body turn a beam of polarized light in the left-handed direction (L-lysine) and sugars to the right-handed direction (D-ribose)– one cannot simply create biologically active, synthetic drugs arbitrarily, as a mistake in handedness (or similar property) could be fatal. Nature, therefore, still provides an elegant biomolecular architecture of irreproducible intelligence and complexity, from which synthetic analogs are modeled and/or derivatives are spun.

As a result, billions of dollars of drug industry and government money (i.e. tax payer money) flow into finding lead compounds for drug development.  Nature is put on the rack, if you will, and her secrets teased from her through innumerable animal and test tube experiments, in order to find compounds that can then be converted into synthetic, patented drugs.

Inadvertently, some of the very same companies and interests which require that natural substances not receive the same drug-approval status as synthetic ones, are funding research that prove basic vitamins, foods and spices are as effective or more effective – and usually much safer – than the drugs  they are developing to replace or supplant them.  

This means that tens of thousands of studies do exist showing that natural substances may prevent and/or treat disease, at least in the in vitro (test tube) and animal models. These results often confirm traditional uses in Ayurvedic, Chinese and other traditional systems of medicine, and therefore may be compelling enough for individuals or healthcare practitioners to use the information to inform their treatment decisions.

The Case For Curcumin In the Prevention and Treatment of Disease

The government biomedical and life sciences database known as Medline contains over 21 million published study citations, and is accessible to search through engines such as Pubmed.gov.  2.6 million of them contain reference to cancer.  115,000 of them remain after applying the “Complementary Medicine” filter.   2,625 of them can be found indexed on the GreenMedInfo.com database, referencing 612 natural substances of potential value. Turmeric, and particularly its polyphenolic constituent known as curcumin, which gives the spice its golden hue, is one of the most extensively studied natural compounds of all time, with 4588 references to it on the National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic database known as Medline [as of 2.25.2012]. And yet, despite having been shown to have therapeutic value in over 500 disease states in animal and in vitro studies, it still has not been the subject of extensive human clinical research – for the reasons stated above.  

GreenMedInfo.com, an open source natural medicine database, has indexed curcumin’s anti-cancer properties in over 50 cancers, with the top 10 most cancers researched in association with curcumin listed below.   

Cancer

Number of Articles

Breast Cancer

58

Colorectal Cancer

23

Colon Cancer

51

Prostate Cancer

42

Pancreatic Cancer

24

Cancers: Drug Resistant

40

Lung Cancer

37

Liver Cancer

27

Cancer Metastasis

32

Skin Cancer

15

Sources: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/curcumin

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How Gluten Causes Rheumatoid Arthritis

by: Sarka-Jonae Miller

(NaturalNews) Eating foods containing gluten could lead to rheumatoid arthritis, a disease characterized by inflammation and pain in the joints. Gluten intolerance leads to damage in the small intestine when gluten is present. Gluten is a protein found in most grains. Bread, pasta and pretzels are just some of the foods that contain gluten. People who are gluten intolerant may experience side effects from eating gluten, but some people do not have symptoms and could be unknowingly increasing their risk of rheumatoid arthritis.

Joint Care

Having a gluten intolerance means that the body has a hard time digesting the gluten found in grains like wheat, barley, rye and possibly oats. If not managed, a gluten intolerance may lead to serious conditions such as diabetes and intestinal cancer. A gluten intolerance may cause aching joints, which is also a symptom of rheumatoid arthritis. Additional symptoms include muscle cramps, hair loss, nausea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, mouth ulcers and seizures.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease disease, meaning it causes the body's immune system to attack healthy tissue. The cause of rheumatoid arthritis is unknown; it is found most commonly in middle-aged women, though men can get it too. Symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis include pain and stiffness in the joints on both sides of the body. Most often this affects the fingers, wrists, knees, feet and ankles. Joints may also feel tender or warm during periods of inactivity. Deformity in the joints can occur over time, according to PubMed Health.

When bacteria enters the body, the immune system recognizes the invader as something foreign. It attacks this invader to prevent illness. Unfortunately, in people with rheumatoid arthritis, the body thinks that their own body tissue is an invader and attacks it. The intestinal lining gets damaged during autoimmune attacks, which allows large food particles to pass through the damaged intestinal wall and get into the body. This condition is known as leaky gut and the autoimmune response. It may contribute to rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, according to Robb Wolf. Wolf is a a former research biochemist and the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Paleo Solution. For someone who is gluten intolerant, the body attacks grains that contain gluten, leading to intestinal damage. This allows the gluten particles to get into the bloodstream and to the joints, which the immune system then attacks and damages as well.

Dietary therapy may reduce rheumatoid arthritis symptoms by eliminating foods that trigger an autoimmune response, according to an article published in the British Journal of Rheumatotology in June 1993. This therapy may even slow the progression of the disease by eliminating all trigger foods from the diet. Dietary therapy is also useful as a diagnostic tool to discover unique food triggers. The therapy begins with eliminating every possible food trigger for arthritis out of the diet, such as beef, eggs, wheat, oranges, milk, peanuts, malt and soy. Food is then reintroduced one at a time to see if a person reacts to a particular item.

Sources for this article include:

RobbWolf.com: Frequently Asked Questions: Robb Wolf, http://robbwolf.com/faq/

PubMed Health: Rheumatoid Arthritis, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001467/

British Journal of Rheumatotology: Review of Dietary Therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

PubMed Health: Celiac Disease: Sprue, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001280/

About the author:
Sarka-Jonae Miller is a health writer and novelist. She was certified as a personal fitness trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. She also worked as a massage therapist, group exercise instructor and assistant martial arts instructor.
Miller's premiere novel, "Between Boyfriends," was recently published http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006Q6TSCS/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

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White House Blocking Release of Monsanto-Linked Lobbyist Emails

by Madison Ruppert

The Obama administration is now blocking a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by an environmental group, Public Employees for Environment Responsibility (PEER), which is attempting to uncover Obama’s connections to Monsanto-linked lobbyists.

Keep in mind, Monsanto’s products have been linked to some horrific effects on biological systems like the human body, not the least of which is creating necrosis and significant mutations in critical cell types.

Also quite noteworthy is the fact that Monsanto was actually recently found guilty of chemical poisoning in the case of a French farmer.

The group suspects the Obama White House of working with these lobbyists to defend genetically engineered (GE) crops and the attempts to get these GE crops planted in wildlife refuges across the United States.

Part of the information which is currently being withheld by the Obama administration is part of an email from January 2011 from a lobbyist to a top White House policy analyst.

This lobbyist was with the Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, which regularly represents the interests of companies specializing in GE seeds like Syngenta and the infamous multinational giant Monsanto.

The White House claims that they had to block portions of the email because it contained information on BIO’s lobbying strategy.

They claimed that if this strategy was released, it could cause damage to the group’s competitiveness and those of the companies it represents.

“We suspect the reason an industry lobbyist so cavalierly shared strategy is that the White House is part of that strategy,” said Kathryn Douglass, the staff counsel for PEER.

Douglass is arguing that the email should be public record, adding, “The White House’s legal posture is as credible as claiming Coca Cola’s secret formula was ‘inadvertently’ left in a duffel bag at the bus station.”

PEER has been doing phenomenal work exposing the connections between our government and BIO lobbyists, including the release of internal emails last July.

The email release revealed that Peter Schmeissner, a senior science policy analyst and member of the biotechnology working group at the White House, actually had been corresponding with a BIO lobbyist about one of PEER’s legal challenges.

The lawsuit, filed by PEER and their allied groups, was quite successful in that it halted the planting of GE crops within the wildlife refuges across northeastern states.

PEER has obviously not given up and they continue to fight the planned plantings of GE crops across the nation.

In some of the emails obtained by PEER from 2010, it was found that Adrianne Massey, a biotechnology lobbyist for quite a while, asked Schmeissner if the “interagency working group” is addressing the legal challenges put forth by PEER.

In addition, Massey forwarded some of the environmental assessments of the proposed GE crop plots at other wildlife refuges across the United States. These assessments could supposedly protect GE crop plots in wildlife refuges from further legal challenges in the future.

The emails obtained by PEER spurred them to seek out information on the “interagency working group” referred to by Massey which is known as the White House Agricultural and Biotechnology Working Group via FOIA request.

The group boasts high-level officials from most of the Obama administration’s agencies that deal with agriculture and trade, even the State Department, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to PEER.

These discoveries have led PEER to file a lawsuit against the White House in an attempt to get the information which was withheld from their FOIA requests.

This would include not only the Massey email in question but the White House Agricultural and Biotechnology Working Group’s schedule, the items on their agenda and their work related to GE crops in general.

An attorney for BIO filed an affidavit which claims that the withheld portions of Massey’s email contain “mistakenly” forwarded trade secrets.

“BIO operates in an advocacy environment in which there are many organizations that oppose the use of biotechnology, particularly in the agricultural arena, and that seek to persuade federal, state and local agencies to restrict the technology’s use. If this information were released, competitors could imitate or seek to counteract BIO’s strategy and further their own contrary agendas at the expense of BIO and its members,” the attorney wrote.

The White House is also claiming that they withheld the information according to current disclosure law, but PEER isn’t buying it, and likely rightly so.

Jeff Ruch, PEER’s Director told Truth-Out that he believes that the withheld Massey email actually has the details of a concerted effort being made by BIO lobbyists to have the White House help make sure that the environmental assessments of the GE crops on wildlife refuges are so strong that they cannot be challenged on a legal basis in the future.

This is because groups like PEER regularly challenge the legally required environmental assessments in order to hold up projects like planting GE crops on wildlife refuges in court.

Deborah Rocque, an official with the United States Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), claimed last year that the FWS had actually been allowing farming on refuges for years.

Rocque claims this is part of habitat restoration efforts and that the planting of herbicide-resistant GE crops would actually allow conservationists to grow ground cover while still killing unwanted weeds with herbicidal products.

However, even classifying these types of crops as “herbicide-resistant” is misleading, because in the case of “Roundup Ready” crops produced by Monsanto the crops actually still absorb all of the incredibly harmful Roundup but instead of dying, these crops are genetically engineered to be able to survive the herbicide.

This means that if these products are moved into the food supply, there are trace amounts of Roundup which actually make it to the dinner table.

The mere presence of herbicides in the environment is something that any true conservationist would avoid like the plague, so Rocque’s statement is laughably nonsensical.

PEER seems to realize the ulterior motive behind the effort to plant GE crops on wildlife refuges, which they see as an attempt by the Obama administration to boost exports of the crops.

While European countries remain relatively skeptical about the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods and some other countries have actually banned certain seeds, the United States government shares none of these concerns.

PEER says that the White House and its working group is trying to give trade partners the impression that the United States government thinks GE crops are so environmentally safe that they can even be planted on wildlife reserves.

Such a vote of confidence could increase the willingness of trade partners to import the GE crops, which have quite a long list of potential hazards associated with their use.

Truth-Out has been doing one of the best jobs of keeping track of the United States’ efforts to pressure foreign nations into accepting exports and GE crops, including countries like France and Spain.

Through the release of some WikiLeaks cables, it was found that essentially United States diplomats were working for companies like Monsanto by going around the world promoting their GE products.

The first legal challenge relating to the planting of GE crops on wildlife reserves came after PEER was contacted by biologists with the FWS who were opposed to the planting of GE crops on said reserves.

Later, PEER actually received an internal email which they believe shows that Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the USDA, actually was pressuring FWS to support GE crops.

In the email, dated January 14, 2011, David Hayes, the Interior Department Deputy Secretary, relayed to some of the top Interior Department and FWS officials that, “Apparently Vilsack is somewhat exercised that the Administration is not being consistent in supporting genetically modified crops.”

Of course when asked about this high-level pressure, Rocque claimed that she was completely unaware of any internal pressure coming from the upper levels of the Obama administration.

This is just more of the “I do not recall” plausible deniability nonsense.

Hopefully PEER’s legal challenges will be treated in a just manner and we will be able to get an accurate glimpse in the world of corporatism which is so egregiously damaging our nation.

The case of Monsanto and the American diplomats promotion of their products is just about the most perfect example of how corrupt our so-called government has really become.

More at EndtheLie.com – http://EndtheLie.com/2012/02/21/white-house-blocking-release-of-monsanto-linked-lobbyists-email/#ixzz1nd7SDDR8
Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis databaseEnd The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE.  If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]

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Has Cancer Been Completely Misunderstood?

by Sayer Ji

A Failed War On Cancer

Ever since Richard Nixon officially declared a war on cancer in 1971 through the signing of the National Cancer Act, over a hundred billion dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on research and drug development in an attempt to eradicate the disease, with trillions more spent by the cancer patients themselves, but with disappointing results.

Immune Booster Protocol

Even after four decades of waging full-scale “conventional” (surgery and chemo) and “nuclear” (radiotherapy) war against cancer, one in every four Americans will be diagnosed with the disease within their lifetimes – and this number is projected to grow – unabated — not unlike the process of cancer itself.

Could this colossal failure reflect how profoundly misunderstood the condition is, and misguided are our attempts to prevent and treat it?  

The Question That Must Be Answered Anew: What Is Cancer?

Perhaps we need to return back to the fundamental question of ‘What Is Cancer’?    After all, until we find an accurate answer to this question, all attempts to ‘prevent’ and ‘treat’ a disease we do not understand are doomed to fail.

For the past half century, the “Mutational Theory” has provided the prevailing explanation for the cause of cancer, where, as the story goes, accumulated mutations within our cells lead a few susceptible ones to “go berserk,” their “insane” and “violent” behavior a result of multiple destructive events to the intelligent code within the cell (DNA) that normally keep them acting in a ‘civilized’ manner relative to the larger multicellular community as a whole (i.e. the body). In this view, these rogue cells replicate incessantly and form a tumor which spreads outward in a cancerous manner (cancer = Greek for “crab”), in many ways simulating the characteristics of an infectious process within the host, until the growths obstruct vital processes, resulting in morbidity and death.  

According to this theory, which was heavily influenced by the Darwinian theory of evolution and is sometimes called “Internal Darwinism,” what drives the evolution of the healthy cells into cancerous ones is a process very similar to natural selection, i.e. random mutations beneficial to the survival and reproduction of cancerous cells in a tumor are naturally selected for and conserved, driving them towards malignancy. Damage to the DNA can occur either through inheriting defective DNA sequences (“bad genes” in the family) or exposures to DNA-damaging chemicals (e.g. tobacco) or radiation.

While this view has some explanative value, it can also be quite misleading.  For instance, a fundamental tenet of evolution is that random mutations are almost always harmful, resulting in immediate cell death. Cancer cells, however, seem to get quite ‘lucky’ because they appear to thrive on them.  Rather than dying like normal cells when faced with random mutations, they exhibit the exact opposite response: they become immortalized, incapable of undergoing the programmed cell death required of healthy cells.

Is randomness and chaos, then, really at the root of the transformation of healthy cells into cancer?

Tumors, after all, express highly organized behaviors, seemingly impossible to induce through strictly random forces such as mutation…

A collection of cancer cells (tumors), for instance, are capable of building their own blood supply (angiogenesis), are able to defend themselves by silencing cancer-suppression genes and activating tumor-promoter genes, secreting corrosive enzymes to move freely throughout the body, alter their metabolism to live in low oxygen, high sugar and acidic environments, and know how to remove their own surface-receptor proteins to escape detection by white blood cells.  Could these complex behaviors really be a result of random mutations? And is it possible that random mutations could result in the formation of the same “lucky” set of genetic properties, each and every time a new cancer forms in a human?

Random mutations, no doubt, play a major role in the initiation and promotion of cancer, but are not alone sufficient for a complete explanation.  One group of scientists, in fact, have offered a much more compelling explanation. They view multiple mutations causing an unmasking of an ancient survival program within the cell….

Cancer as An Ancient Survival Program Unmasked

A brilliant new theory, introduced by Arizona State University scientist, Paul Davies, and Australian National University scientist, Charles Lineweaver, sheds much needed light on the true nature of cancer. According to Davies:

"Cancer is not a random bunch of selfish rogue cells behaving badly, but a highly-efficient pre-programmed response to stress, honed by a long period of evolution."

In their seminal paper, titled “Cancer tumors as Metazoa 1.0: tapping genes of ancient ancestors,” Davies and Lineweaver propose that cancer is an evolutionary throw-back, drawing from a genetic ‘tool-kit’ at least a billion years old, and which still lies buried – normally dormant – deep within the genome of our cells.  Davies calls this subterranean genetic layer Metazoa 1.0, and it contains pathways and programs that were once indispensable for our ancient cellular predecessors and their early proto-communities to survive in a radically different environment. Without the highly differentiated cells and specialized organs of higher multicellular/animal life (Metazoa 2.0), cells with the genetics of Metazoa 1.0 would have favored traits that enabled them to survive direct contact with what was a much different and harsher (to us) environment. For example, 1 billion years ago atmospheric oxygen was exceptionally low, since photosynthesis has not yet evolved to produce an abundant supply. This means that cellular life at that time would have had to learn to thrive in a low or no oxygen environment, which is exactly what cancer cells do, using anaerobic glycolysis for energy instead of oxidative phosphorylation .

Davies and Lineweaver summarize their view as follows:

“The genes of cellular cooperation that evolved with multicellularity [animal life] about a billion years ago are the same genes that malfunction to cause cancer. We hypothesize that cancer is an atavistic condition that occurs when genetic or epigenetic malfunction unlocks an ancient 'toolkit' of pre-existing adaptations, re-establishing the dominance of an earlier layer of genes that controlled loose-knit colonies of only partially differentiated cells, similar to tumors. The existence of such a toolkit implies that the progress of the neoplasm [cancer] in the host organism differs distinctively from normal Darwinian evolution.”

Instead of viewing the hallmark trait of cancer, namely, incessant proliferation, as a newly evolved trait spurned by random mutations, it would be considered the default state of the cell, having been developed a billion years ago when ‘not dying’ would be the first priority.  Remember, this ancestral assemblage of cells would not have had the differentiation of cell type and specialization of tissue associated with higher animals, i.e. skin, hair, claws, etc., with which to protect themselves against the environment. Damage to the skin in animals, for instance, results in the rapid death and sloughing off these ‘extra’ cells, to be replaced by new healthy ones.  A still barely multicellular entity would not have this luxury, and would entrench itself within genetic traits associated with resilience, the ability to resist all manner of environmental assault, and would express a highly ‘selfish’ form of behavior we now consider a fundamental property of cancer.

If cancer is an ancient survival program unmasked, this does not mean that the “Mutation Theory” does not still hold some truth. Genetic damage and mutations do in fact contribute to cancer, but rather than view them as ‘causing’ the complex set of behaviors associated with cancer, they unmask an already existent set of genetic programs [atavism].* For instance, there are over 100 oncogenes known to exist within our DNA and are shared by a vast array of different species including the fruit fly, indicating how ancient (at least 600 million years old) and universal they are (found in most multicellular organisms).  Numerous studies confirm that dinosaurs had tumors. These cancer-promoting genes are normally suppressed by more recently evolved genes (Metazoa 2.0), such as tumor-suppressor genes, but when enough damage to the more recently evolved genetic overlay occurs, the system goes into “Safe Mode” and the older genetic pathways (Metazoa 1.0) are activated once more.  

Within the horizon of this new way of thinking, cancer can no longer be viewed as some predestined gene-time bomb setting itself off within us, nor simply a byproduct of cumulative exposures to genotoxic substances, alone.  Rather, cancer is an ancient survival response to an increasingly toxic environment, and an increasingly unnatural diet and compromised immune function.  These cells have learned to survive the constant abuse, and have flipped into survival mode, which is self-centered, hyper-proliferative (constant self-repair/replication) and aggressive (metastatic), i.e. what does not kill you makes you stronger 

Cancer As Something Our Body Does To Survive

Cancer can no longer be viewed as something bad that happens to an intrinsically healthy body. Rather, cancer is something the body actively does in response to an intrinsically unhealthy cellular, bodily and planetary environment.  Instead of an expression of bodily deviance, it may be expressive of bodily intelligence, and the capability of our cells to survive in conditions that threaten to destroy cells beyond the critical threshold beyond which survival is impossible.

This perspective also sheds much needed light on the devastating nature of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Tumors contain a broad range of cells, many of which are intrinsically benign (will never become malignant or cause damage to the organism) and some of which keep more malignant populations in check. The invasive cells are more primordial in their genetic configuration (Metazoa 1.0) due to just how much shock/damage/poisoning they have been made to endure during their life cycles. It is exactly these cells, therefore, that are MOST resistant to the chemo, and less likely to die when exposed to it. The chemotherapy and radiation, therefore, actually kill the very cells that do not represent a threat, and select for more invasive ones. This explains why at first the introduction of chemotherapy/radiation may cause tumor regression, but the small population that survives (including cancer stem cells) technically comes back even stronger thereafter. In the same way that antibiotics like methicillin spawned the monster that is methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aeureus, which creates a population of bacteria with highly up-regulated multidrug resistance proteins and genes, chemotherapy and radiation CREATE a genetically more resistant population of super-cancers, and often is the reason why the patient dies. Sadly, in these cases the death is blamed on the “chemoresistant” and “radioresistant” cancer and the victim is blamed, if you will, for being killed by the very treatment they were being told they would die much sooner without. 

Cancer Is “A Symptom” And Not A “Disease.”

So, instead of a monolithic “disease,” it makes more sense to view cancer as a symptom of cellular and environmental conditions gone awry; in other words, the environment of the cell has become inhospitable to normal cell function, and in order to survive, the cell undergoes profound genetic changes, drawing ancient genetic pathways which we associate with the cancerous personality ( phenotype). This “ecological” view puts the center of focus back on the preventable and treatable causes of the “disease,” rather on some vague and out-dated concept of “defective genes” beyond our ability influence directly.  It also explains how the “disease” process may conceal an inherent logic, if not also healing impulse, insofar as it is an attempt of the body to find balance and survive in inherently unbalanced and dangerous conditions.  Fundamentally, we need to shift our thinking away from the view that cancer is something unnatural that happens to us, to one where we see that cancer is something natural our body does to survive unnatural conditions.  Change and improve those conditions, and you do more to change cancer than attacking it as if you were fighting a war against an enemy. 

 


[i] The National Cancer Act, http://legislative.cancer.gov/history/phsa/1971

 

*Additional explanation of the cancer-atavism theory

*The concept of cancer-as-atavism can be explained this way: An atavism is an older genetic trait that is no longer used, and therefore suppressed by newly evolved genes. An example is webbed feet. Everyone in the womb has them, but as embryogenesis proceeds genetic sequences kick in that cause them to disappear. This is done through a process of ‘programmed cell death,’ also known as apoptosis. The body simply turns on the apoptosis genes in the tissue associated with webbing between the toes, and those cells peacefully disassemble themselves, resulting in normal web-free hands and feet.  Now the interesting thing is that cancer cells ARE cancerous because they DO NOT DIE. They have either forgotten how to undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis), or, have been forced through injury (genetic damage) or environmental pressures (epigenetic changes) to suppress the genes that enable them to die.   The cancer cells, in effect, draw from an ancient genetic tool kit which its predecessors over a billion years ago used to survive what was at the time a very harsh environment, and where replicating was a much more preferred trait than dying, and where cells had yet formed highly evolved multicellular communities found within animals.

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Featured Articles

Breast Screenings Creating An Epidemic of Over-Diagnosis

by Sayer Ji

A new study that looked at 14 years of mammography screening in Norway found that the increased incidence of breast cancer observed in that period was due to over-diagnosis: “findings of tumours that in the absence of screening would never have given rise to clinical illness.” 

Immune Booster Protocol

According to the researchers, the effect of hormone replacement therapy could not have been responsible for the steep increase in breast cancer diagnoses because they occurred “during a period when the use of hormones has fallen by 70 %.” 

Between 1991-2009 the researchers found new cases of breast cancer increased from 2000 to 2750. The study concluded “that in the absence of screening, around 800 of these women would never have become breast cancer patients." Moreover, 300 of the cancers were classified as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) — a form of breast cancer that a growing body of research indicates may not be cancer at all.
 

This latest study confirms research published in the British Medical Journal in Dec. 2011, showing that breast screening may have caused net harm for up to 10 years after their widespread introduction. For more details read our previous article on the topic.
 
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

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Research: A Tsp. of Aloe Daily Reverses Signs of Skin Aging

by Sayer Ji

There is plenty of research that indicates that the unnaturally accelerated aging process associated with modern living and/or natural environmental exposures such as excessive ultraviolet radiation (photaging), can be slowed. In fact, over 150 natural substances have been indexed on the GreenMedInfo.com project with demonstrable “anti-aging,” or if you prefer, “longevity-promoting” properties.

Utopia Naturals Soap

Of the 69 natural substances indexed on GreenMedInfo.com of potential value in skin aging, aloe is one of the most compelling substances, and works from the inside out … 

In a study published in the journal Annals of Dermatology in 2009, healthy female subjects over the age of 45, and who received received 2 different oral doses (low-dose: 1,200 mg/d, high-dose: 3,600 mg/d) of aloe vera gel supplementation for 90 days, saw remarkable results. The researchers measured clinical signs and biochemical changes of aging skin before and after supplementation and found that “After aloe gel intake, the facial wrinkles improved significantly (p<0.05) in both groups, and facial elasticity improved in the lower-dose group.”  They concluded: “Aloe gel significantly improves wrinkles and elasticity in photoaged human skin.”

Keep in mind that 3,600 mg of aloe a day is not what you would call a “megadose,” as it is a little less than a teaspoon. 1,200 mg is only a quarter of a teaspoon, and in fact, according to the study, may actually be superior to the higher dose at improving facial elasticity; less is sometimes more, one can assume.

Also, the amazing thing about aloe is that it has a wide range of potential "side benefits," with 50 of them viewable on our Aloe Research Page alone.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.