Month: June 2012

"The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion. "Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness."

Thus, the government can force Americans to buy anything it wants by simply characterizing the forced payment as a "tax."

Economic freedom crushed by Supreme Court
This article is not an argument so much about Obamacare itself, by the way; it's a red alert about a fundamental loss of economic freedom — a shifting of private purchasing decisions to Washington D.C. Now, buoyed by the passage of Obamacare, the U.S. government can (and will) create new mandates that, for example, would force Americans to buy all the following:

• A new car each year from Detroit, in order to "boost the U.S. auto industry."
• War bonds to "support the war effort."
• A year's supply of vaccines.
• Life insurance from the government's "approved" sources.
• Lawn fertilizer (the "lawn health care mandate").
• Intellectual property such as patented human genes already in your body.

There is no limit to the reach of the Supreme Court's wild misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause, it seems. So now, all Americans can expect to get ready for the federal government to start laying out a long list of products and services we will all be taxed into buying from the crony capitalist buddies of those in power.

Government hands economic monopoly to Big Pharma and the vaccine industry
Perhaps the worst side effect is that Obamacare isn't really about health care at all. It's about protecting a Big Pharma monopoly over medicine; forcing consumers to buy into a system that offers zero coverage for alternative medicine, nutritional therapies, natural remedies or the healing arts.

If Obamacare actually offered consumers a free market choice of where to get services, it would be a lot more balanced and effective. Instead, it forces consumers to buy into a system of monopoly medicine of drugs and surgery that would flat-out collapse if not for the monopolistic protections granted to the industry by the government itself.

If given a free choice, most consumers prefer complementary medicine than straight-up "drugs and surgery" medicine, but complementary medicine isn't covered under Obamacare. The law is really just another corrupt, criminal-minded handout to the drug industry. And now, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, you can't even opt out!

Abuse of power by the federal government knows no bounds
That's the real kicker in all this: No more opting out of the private purchasing demands of the federal government! Americans are being pick-pocketed at an alarming rate, and it's only going to get worse now that this power has been unwisely handed to the federal government by a short-sighted Supreme Court.

Because long after Obama is gone, other Presidents — from any political party — will abuse this precedent to force Americans into buying any number of products, services, or even intellectual property that we don't want. There is now no limit to what the federal government can force you to buy by calling it a "tax."

Note, carefully, there is NO LIMIT to this "taxing" power. If you bring home a monthly paycheck of, for example, $3,000, the U.S. government can now mandate that you spend $2,999 of that on various products and services that it deems you must have "for your own protection." You no longer control your own take-home pay! The government can force you to spend it on things you don't want or even need!

America, it seems, is starting to sound a whole lot like England under King George. Soon, we'll be living under our own modern Stamp Act from 1765, which eventually led to the American Revolution. Learn your history! As Wikipedia explains: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765)

The Stamp Act 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III, c. 12) was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money. The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War. The British government felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries of this military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the expense.

The Stamp Act met great resistance in the colonies. The colonies sent no representatives to Parliament, and therefore had no influence over what taxes were raised, how they were levied, or how they would be spent. Many colonists considered it a violation of their rights as Englishmen to be taxed without their consent — consent that only the colonial legislatures could grant. Colonial assemblies sent petitions and protests. The Stamp Act Congress held in New York City, reflecting the first significant joint colonial response to any British measure, also petitioned Parliament and the King. Local protest groups, led by colonial merchants and landowners, established connections through correspondence that created a loose coalition that extended from New England to Georgia. Protests and demonstrations initiated by the Sons of Liberty often turned violent and destructive as the masses became involved. Very soon all stamp tax distributors were intimidated into resigning their commissions, and the tax was never effectively collected.

Opposition to the Stamp Act was not limited to the colonies. British merchants and manufacturers, whose exports to the colonies were threatened by colonial economic problems exacerbated by the tax, also pressured Parliament. The Act was repealed on March 18, 1766 as a matter of expedience, but Parliament affirmed its power to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever" by also passing the Declaratory Act. There followed a series of new taxes and regulations, likewise opposed by the colonists.

The mother whose child was taken away had planned a home birth, and made the mistake of not having a contingency plan, a "Plan B," in case she ended up in the hospital, as some planned home births inevitably do for one reason or another. Once in the hospital, she politely refused the Hep B vaccine, but unfortunately, not in a manner consistent with her state's legal options. Sadly, we don't have the right to decide what goes into our and our children's bodies, at least not absolutely. As disgusting as that feel to many of us, it's the legal reality. So, if you're expecting, find out what your state's vaccine requirements and legal exemption options are! These may vary from state to state, so go to an authoritative source – a site that posts the actual laws (links to three such sites are here), or to your local or state health department (call them or go to their website). Unauthoritative sources such as anti-vaccine websites mean well, and they often have great information about vaccine health concerns, but they often misunderstand some aspects of exemption laws and rights, and some people have lost rights by relying on them. Where legal rights are concerned, if it's important, it's worth getting it right the first time.

It's not only important to know the law for your own sake, so that you know what to do and what not to do, but also because many people on the other side of the fence misunderstand the law as well. For example, North Carolina's health department regulations allow parents up to three months to get their newborn his or her first Hep B vaccine. You don't need an exemption to say "no" in a NC hospital, at least according to the law. However, a new NC parent once said she was threatened by a doctor with having her baby taken away from her right after birth if she didn't let them vaccine the baby right there in the hospital. So, we need to know our rights to be able to defend against and counter the all-too-common ignorant abuse of the medical community.

Why would a doctor do this? Well, in addition to being among the vaccine-misinformed pharmaceutical-salespeople that so many doctors are, most professionals are legally required to report suspected cases of abuse and neglect. The woman referred to above whose child was taken away? She was, essentially, attempting to exercise a philosophical exemption in a state that had only medical and religious exemptions. So, by politely refusing the Hep B vaccine, she was, in effect, declaring herself to be a legally neglectful parent (yes, one can become legally "neglectful" as an unintended side-effect of being an informed parent). The hospital social worker may not have had a choice, if she was to abide by the law strictly. I'm not saying she should have taken the baby away or that she couldn't have cooperated with the new mother, I'm saying that the social worker's actions were probably legally defensible. Maybe reprehensible as well from the point of view of some of us, but probably legally correct. In fact, if the social worker hadn't taken the baby away, the social worker might have put her own job at risk. Such is the insanity of our current society, 'insanity' considering how many newborn babies are sexually promiscuous drug users at risk of contracting Hepatitis B and the fact that vaccines come with a risk of permanent disability or death.

So, how do you avoid the situations described above? First, regardless of whether or not you are planning a home birth, you should plan for a hospital visit in case you end up there. Second, you should take steps to exercise an exemption, and put that in writing, and make sure that everyone has a copy in advance of the writing. For those planning a home birth, have the document ready ahead of time in a hospital bag so that if you end up rushing to the hospital unexpectedly, you don't have to take time to look for it or worry about forgetting it. In short, think it through, put it in writing, be prepared.

There's another potential complication with newborn vaccine exemptions, that being that many exemption laws are written in language that contemplates school enrollment. There probably aren't many exemption laws written specifically for refusing the Hep B vaccine for newborns. So, you may have to improvise a little. Do what the law says for school exemptions, or write a statement consistent with one or more of your state's exemption laws. If you have doubts, consult a knowledgeable attorney. Again, if it's important, it's worth doing right. But so far, at least, I've never heard of someone being refused an exemption for a newborn because the exemption law was written for school enrollment. And if you have to state what your religious beliefs are that are opposed to immunizations, consider getting help, as there are legal pitfalls to avoid that can undermine the exemption. What does and doesn't qualify for a vaccine religious exemption is often inconsistent with a common sense approach to writing statements of religious belief.

One final comment: The insanity referred to above? We have the power to change that. There are two basic steps. First, learn all you can about the science and the law, the corruption in industry and government, and your current rights. Second, take steps to preserve and expand your right to free choice. This includes–indeed, requires–becoming legislatively aware and active. Laws are being passed that restrict access to vaccine exemptions and to enable children to consent to vaccines. Many of these laws are unconstitutional, but legislatures enact them anyway. If we don't make our voices loud enough soon enough, we will all end up being required to get more and more vaccines, with less and less legal right to say 'no.' If this is not acceptable to you, join the NVIC's Advocacy Portal, and the Pandemic Response Project's mailing list.

IG Farben was the only German company to run its own concentration camp. At least 30,000 slave workers died in this camp and a lot more were deported to gas chambers. It was no coincidence that IG Farben built their giant plant in Auschwitz, since the 300,000 people they used there were free. The Zyklon B gas, which killed millions of Jews, Gypsies and other people was produced by IG Farben's subsidiary company Degesch.

New news is bad news
ScienceDaily (June 25, 2012) – A new study finds that the fungicide tolylfluanid, manufactured by Bayer AG and used on farm crops can induce insulin resistance and provides yet another piece of evidence linking environmental pollutants to diabetes. The results were presented June 23 at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. "For the first time, we've ascribed a molecular mechanism by which an environmental pollutant can induce insulin resistance, lending credence to the hypothesis that some synthetic chemicals might be contributors to the diabetes epidemic," said investigator Robert Sargis, M.D., Ph.D., instructor in the endocrinology division at the University of Chicago.

Sargis and co-investigators examined the effects of tolylfluanid on insulin resistance at the cellular level and found that exposure to tolylfluanid induced insulin resistance in fat cells. Sargis says "The fungicide and antifouling agent tolylfluanid may pose a threat to public health through the induction of adipocytic-insulin resistance, an early step in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes… Based on these studies, further efforts should be undertaken to clarify human exposure to tolylfluanid and the possible metabolic consequences of that exposure."

Rising tide of metabolic disease
Close to 26 million adults and children have some form of diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Diabetes increases the risk of other medical complications, including heart and blood-vessel diseases. In the last decade, research has increasingly focused on the link between environmental contaminants and the escalating rates of diabetes, obesity and other metabolic diseases. Environmental pollutants like tolylfluanid are potential contributors to the rampant metabolic disease epidemic we see today.

Tolyfluanid is actually a hidden source of fluoride
Tolylfluanid has been banned for use in the US because it causes thyroid tumors in rats (not dose/concentration-related), and kidney damage to renal tubules (because tolyfluanid is actually another hidden source of fluoride). The main source for tolylfluanid entering the US is on imported apples and apple juice, grapes and grape juice, head lettuce, hops, tomatoes and other products to which tolylfluanid is applied a maximum of 15 times per season. Tolylfluanid is classified by the EPA as "Likely to be carcinogenic to humans" based on the following weight-of-the-evidence findings: Tolylfluanid induced follicular cell thyroid tumors in high-dose male and female rats and were reproducible. In vitro and in vivo mutagenicity assays found gene mutations and chromosomal aberrations in mammalian cells.

Under other names and uses, this chemical is widely used in paints, wood preservatives and in marine applications.

Even with growing public awareness of environmental toxins and the diseases they cause, it will take decades of human suffering and misery before any semblance of a solution comes to light. Meanwhile it is in the power of the consumer to influence Big Pharma by refusing to buy their products. This will certainly bring about changes quicker than the Big Money-influenced legislation processes. Where is our public outrage? Where do our loyalties lie?

Support public health and decency, be an informed consumer.

As part of a trivia series on polio, Aufderheide cites several studies showing that the widespread use of chemical pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, and heptachlor following World War II, actual exacerbated viral disease outbreaks across the United States.

On a visual graph, it is clearly seen that the production and use of pesticides throughout the mid-20th century is directly correlated to polio outbreaks, including the worst polio epidemic in known history, which occurred in 1952.

You can view the graph here:
http://vactruth.com/2012/06/03/7-trivia-facts-about-polio/

According to a report compiled by the Secretary of the Interior that was presented before the 85th Congress back in 1958, polio really only became a problem after the 1940s, when chemical companies began to produce large amounts of DDT, heptachlor, dieldrin, tetraethyl pyrophosphate (TEPP), malathion, benzene hexachloride (BHC) and other pesticide chemicals for use on agricultural crops. Prior to that time, polio was not nearly as virulent or problematic as many people believe it was.

As DDT and other pesticides were eventually phased out, cases of polio also began to decline, which suggests that vaccines may not have been primarily responsible for eradicating polio. Improvements in sanitation, which are hardly ever mentioned by mainstream health authorities, also played a major role in eradicating polio.

Pesticide-contaminated milk also responsible for polio outbreaks
Many people during the 1950s became ill as a result of pesticide-contaminated milk, much of which ended up having to be quietly pulled from store shelves in subsequent years. This contaminated milk was also known to be a primary carrier of polio, and was directly responsible for spreading the disease until the contaminating pesticides were eventually phased out, and the milk supply effectively remediated.

Interestingly, milk-induced disease outbreaks were responsible for the later creation of milk pasteurization mandates. But it was the pesticides and their tolerance of polio virus, not the fact that milk was raw, that was responsible for spreading disease. And yet the belief that raw milk is inherently dangerous is still prevalent today, while few have any real understanding of the role pesticide-tainted milk played in spreading disease, and particularly polio.

Right around the time that dangerous pesticides were being retired and sanitation was being improved, authorities released a polio vaccine that they claimed would eradicate the disease. The precise timing of this strategic release would later be used to claim that the vaccine, and not agricultural and sanitation improvements, was responsible for ending polio.

Revisionist history continues to fuel myth that vaccines are responsible for eradicating disease
Because of the way drug companies and vaccine manufacturers have influenced governmental and health authorities over the years, the myth that vaccines are responsible for eradicating disease has prevailed. Truth be told, the polio vaccine has been shown to actually cause many of the paralysis symptoms associated with polio, including in India where there has been a 1,200 percent increase vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP) since the introduction of massive polio vaccine campaigns throughout the country

Researchers from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill publishing in the journal CANCER have found that physical activity, either mild or intense and before or after menopause, may reduce breast cancer risk. As an aside, the scientists discovered that substantial weight gain may negate these benefits. The lead study investigator, Dr. Lauren McCullough and her team looked for a link between recreational physical activity, done at different time points in life, and the risk of developing breast cancer.

Study finds moderate exercise can lower breast cancer risk up to 30 percent
The study examined 1,504 women with breast cancer (233 noninvasive and 1,271 invasive) and 1,555 women without breast cancer who were 20 to 98-years-old. Participants were part of the Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project, an investigation set up to review possible environmental causes of breast cancer. Researchers determined that women who exercised either during their reproductive or postmenopausal years had a reduced risk of developing breast cancer.

The study found that women who exercise between ten and nineteen hours per week experienced a 30 percent decrease in breast cancer risk. Risk levels were reduced regardless of duration or intensity, meaning that a rigorous workout was not necessary to achieve positive results. Exercise seemed to lower the risk of hormone receptor positive breast cancer (ER or PR positive), which is the most commonly diagnosed tumor type among American women.

The study team highlighted the finding that increased body weight increased overall risk of developing breast cancer, regardless of hours spent exercising. Clearly, physical activity is important to lower risk, but gaining weight can negate the effect and is an independent risk factor. Dr. McCullough concluded "The observation of a reduced risk of breast cancer for women who engaged in exercise after menopause is particularly encouraging given the late age of onset for breast cancer." A daily 30 minute walk and maintaining a healthy body weight provide a significant shield against this insidious disease.

According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior:

• Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a "95% efficacy rate."

• In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews.com:

Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that "did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people," according to the complaint. (http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm)

• Merck then used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of "hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization."

• Merck's vaccine fraud has actually contributed to the continuation of mumps across America, causing more children to become infected with mumps. (Gee, really? This is what NaturalNews has been reporting for years… vaccines are actually formulated to keep the outbreaks going because it's great for repeat business!)

• Merck used its false claims of "95 percent effectiveness" to monopolize the vaccine market and eliminate possible competitors.

• The Merck vaccine fraud has been going on since the late 1990's, say the Merck virologists.

• Testing of Merck's vaccine was never done against "real-world" mumps viruses in the wild. Instead, test results were simply falsified to achieve the desired outcome.

• This entire fraud took place "with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck's senior management."

• Merck scientists "witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine's efficacy findings," according to court documents (see below).

US government chose to ignore the 2010 False Claims Act!
Rather than taking action on this false claims act, the U.S. government simply ignored it, thereby protecting Merck's market monopoly instead of properly serving justice. This demonstrates the conspiracy of fraud between the U.S. government, FDA regulators and the vaccine industry.

Chatom Primary Care sues Merck for Sherman Act monopolization, breach of warranty, violation of consumer protection laws
Following the unsealing of this 2010 False Claims Act, Chatom Primary Care, based in Alabama, smelled something rotten. Three days ago, Chatom filed a lawsuit against Merck. That lawsuit record is available here:
www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Chatom-Lawsuit-Merck-Mumps.pdf

It alleges, among other shocking things:

[Merck engaged in] …a decade-long scheme to falsify and misrepresent the true efficacy of its vaccine.

Merck fraudulently represented and continues to falsely represent in its labeling and elsewhere that its Mumps Vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95 percent of higher.

In reality, Merck knows and has taken affirmative steps to conceal — by using improper testing techniques and falsifying test data — that its Mumps Vaccine is, and has been since at least 1999, far less than 95 percent effective.

Merck designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck's desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study's findings.

…incorporating the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results…

…destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator…

…threatened a virologist in Merck's vaccine division with jail if he reported the fraud to the FDA…

…the ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection. And while this is a disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control ('CDC'), was supposed to be eradicated by now, the failure in Merck's vaccine has allowed this disease to linger, with significant outbreaks continuing to occur.

Chatom Primary Care also alleges that the fraudulent Merck vaccine contributed to the 2006 mumps outbreak in the Midwest, and a 2009 outbreak elsewhere. It says, "there has remained a significant risk of a resurgence of mumps outbreaks…"

This investigation is only beginning
NaturalNews has only begun to investigate this incredible breaking news about Merck and the vaccine industry. We are pouring through the court documents to identify additional information that may be relevant to this case, and we plan to bring you that information soon.

For the record, Merck denies all allegations. Is anyone surprised?

Even though diet will affect gut flora composition, most studies conclude that gut flora on it's own has an effect on weight. Alteration of the gut microbiota can be an important part of a weight loss program.

Several mechanisms have been proposed as to how gut flora regulates weight. Inflammation, energy from polysaccharides, insulin sensitivity and energy expenditure and storage are all affected by gut flora.

What you eat affects the gut flora composition, but it can also be hypothesized that it can happen the other way around; that gut flora partly determines what you eat. People with gut dysbiosis and especially yeast overgrowth often feel sugar cravings. Gut flora can probably influence food cravings and thereby play a part in determining dietary choices.

Obesity is hereditary, and the importance of gut flora shouldn't be underestimated. Flora is passed on from mother to child during birth, breastfeeding and early years. The child also comes in contact with microorganisms from other family members. "Obese gut flora" is passed on to the child.
Children born via caesarean have double the risk of becoming overweight, according to research by Harvard scientists. The obesity increase has been linked to a lack of exposure to good bacteria which may be found in the vaginal wall.

Differences in intestinal microflora during the first year of life have been associated with higher risk of obesity later in life. Especially low levels of Bifidobacteria make children more susceptible to weight gain.

Obese individuals usually have a dysfunctional gut flora with higher numbers of LPS-containing microbiota and methane-producing bacteria. LPS, Lipopolysaccharide, is linked to obesity, leaky gut and low-level chronic inflammation.

Colonization of germ-free mice with gut flora from either obese or lean mice, leads to significantly greater increase in total body fat in those colonized with "obese microbiota." Animal studies further show that probiotic supplements with Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species help maintain a healthy bodyweight and promote weight-loss. Cattle treated with antibiotics store a lot of fat, and this is one of the reasons why these drugs are used so frequently in feedlots.

How to incorporate this info into your weight loss program
A healthy diet with reduced consumption of sugar, processed carbohydrates, most vegetable oils, anti-nutrients, etc. will on it's own promote weight loss and a healthier gut flora.

Additional gut flora modifications can also be an important part of a weight-loss plan. Simply eating yoghurt will not make any substantial difference in most people. Minimally washed organic plants and plant products, fermented foods and probiotic supplements are all good sources of beneficial bacteria. Prebiotics, soluble fiber that feed good bacteria, can be found in leeks, onions, apples etc.

And yet, somehow, we all missed those 500,000 dead bodies in 2009, which would have overflowed from the morgues, filled local gymnasiums and been found dropping dead across our streets. If 500,000+ people died from swine flu, modern cities would have been littered with dead bodies like something from a war scene. After all, the entire Vietnam War killed roughly 50,000 Americans, and the CDC is claiming swine flu killed ten times as many people.

So where is the war zone? Where are all the bodies? I don't recall any pictures in the news of bodies stacking up anywhere. No reports of morgues overflowing with dead people. No mass graves. No footage from the TV news showing the horrors of stacked body bags. None of that ever happened!

Half a million people died but somehow nobody noticed
Apparently the CDC's position is that 500,000+ people died and somehow no one noticed, if you can believe that. Yep, while we were all watching Dancing With the Stars, hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters were dropping dead on the streets around the world, and then they somehow just vanished into thin air and haven't been heard from since. (Insert Twilight Zone music here…)

Thank goodness the CDC has finally found them all! Thanks to the agency's "computer modeling" — a euphemism for the less technical term "making sh!t up" — all those 500,000+ deaths have finally been accounted for!

But where are the bodies, then? Any cop knows that if you think you have a murder, you need a body. No body means no murder… probably just a missing person instead. So where are the CDC's bodies?

The only rational conclusion is that the CDC is hiding all the bodies! That's why we haven't seen them. Yes, they've dispatched teams of literal body snatchers to whisk away all the dead swine flu bodies before we would notice anything. Check the nursing homes… are your parents still there? Maybe they got snatched by the CDC and you just never noticed…

Bodies for the zombie apocalypse?
So somewhere deep in the CDC's basement, alongside the thawed autism brains and level-4 bioweapons they've been feverishly working on releasing soon in a Chicago bus station, there's a gruesome collection of hundreds of thousands of bodies of swine flu victims. You might wonder, then, for what purpose they are keeping a few hundred thousand bodies on ice.

The answer should be obvious: The CDC is going to re-animate all those bodies and send them back onto the streets during the next zombie apocalypse that the CDC has already warned us about!

According to the CDC's own words posted on May 16th, 2011 — and no, I'm seriously not making this up:

Where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? …Zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder – How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?

So now it's all becoming clear. The CDC is hoarding swine flu bodies (which we somehow never noticed were missing), and it's going to re-animate them using Frankenvaccines, then unleash them onto the streets of America as the much-anticipated zombie apocalypse.

Ah, now it all makes sense. I'm glad there's a rational explanation behind it all, because for a minute there I thought the CDC was just fabricating numbers out of thin air in order to push more vaccines.

Add the University of Florida to that list.

The home of the Gators says it wants to use a $150,000 grant from the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine to increase the vaccination rate of the human papillomavirus among young girls.

What is human papillomavirus? It is a virus that is responsible for a rapidly growing type of oral cancer, and is most often sexually transmitted. It is also the same virus that causes genital warts and cervical cancer.

Free to women on Medicaid and the state's equivalent for younger females, Florida KidCare, the university wants to use your tax money to vaccinate girls (nothing was said about vaccinating young men) against genital and oral complications tied to HPV. What's odd about that is that recent studies show men are three times more likely than women to develop oral HPV.

Vaccine inequalities?

"By 2020, there will be more HPV-positive oral cancers among men than cervical cancers among women in the U.S., and right now we don't even have a way to screen for them," says
Maura L. Gillison, MD, PhD, of Ohio State University, according to a study she led published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But, she notes, "Our data provides evidence that oral HPV infection is predominantly sexually transmitted."

Think reckless self-gratification.

According to local media reports, the university's Dr. Stephanie Staras, assistant professor in the college's department of health outcomes and policy, who is serving as the principle investigator for the project, said it will focus on reaching young women to increase their awareness about the vaccine – the only one that has been developed to protect against cancer – and perhaps prompt more health care providers to recommend the vaccine.

Staras said the vaccination rate among the general population rate of adolescent girls in Florida is about 42 percent. The goal of the program is not to, say, teach girls how to protect themselves from getting the virus in the first place (abstinence?) but rather give them a way to continue to expose themselves to contracting HPV.

"In Florida, girls enrolled in Medicaid are about half as likely as the general population to protect themselves from cervical cancer by getting the HPV vaccine," she said. "We aim to decrease the vaccine inequalities."

But not through preventative education.

Entirely preventable

Nationally, about seven percent of adults are infected with oral HPV, the most prevalent of which is HPV-16, the same sexually transmitted strain associated with a high percentage of cervical cancers.

Government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, follow the same kind of strategy that the University of Florida wants to follow: Assume everyone's going to be sexually active and provide them with a Big Pharma solution. The CDC, for example, recommends girls and boys get a three-shot series of one of the vaccines at age 11 or 12 (before they become "sexually active").

Staras gushed about the program and can't wait to spread the word.

"It's a unique opportunity. Vaccination is rarely brought up during sick child visits. They're thinking about their twisted ankle," she told the Gainesville Sun.

Not everyone is so pleased by the program. Some health care professionals, for example, see the obvious.

Dr. Joseph Zanga, chief of pediatrics at the Medical Center in Columbus, Ga., agrees HPV vaccines can be life-saving. But he says the disease is entirely preventable – by virtue of choice.

"This is the only vaccine that protects you against something you could prevent yourself," he said. "I've had adolescents as patients who get the vaccine and think they don't need to use protection during sexual intercourse. They don't seem to get it."

In the short term, extreme endurance training can cause temporary damage to the heart and arteries, which eventually heals during periods of recovery. But repeated and perpetual endurance training can cause chronic injuries in some people, resulting in patchy scarring of the heart, abnormal heart rhythms and coronary heart disease. If the body is not allowed to heal properly, in other words, and is constantly pushed to extreme levels, the consequences could be severe.

According to the data, 12 percent of runners who participate in marathons were found to have patchy myocardial scarring. Runners who participate in marathons were also found to be significantly more prone to developing coronary heart disease compared to runners that do not participate in marathons. Ultra-marathon running and professional cycling were also linked to a 500 percent increased rate of atrial fibrillation, also known as abnormal heart rhythms.

"A routine of daily physical activity can be highly effective for prevention and treatment of many diseases, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, and obesity," says Dr. O'Keefe. "However … a safe upper dose limit potentially exists, beyond which the adverse effects of physical exercise, such as musculoskeletal trauma and cardiovascular stress, may outweigh its benefits."

The issue pertains primarily to individuals that participate in so-called "extreme" endurance activities such as long-distance cycling trips or races, marathons, triathlons and even some of the popular team-based endurance events that include long periods of running, climbing, swimming and cycling. It does not necessarily apply to those engaging in routine exercises that promote health.

However, if not kept in check and at proper intervals, extreme endurance training of any kind can potentially lead to Phidippides cardiomyopathy, which is the name often used to describe sudden death due to fatal heart damage. This is presumably the condition that has taken the lives of several young teenagers in recent years, all of whom dropped dead suddenly while playing sports.