EU Consumers reject GM food

EU Consumers are still overwhelmingly opposed to GM food, new research published by the European Commission shows.
Read article at farmersguardian.com

More retailers are being asked to use ‘reared without GM’ labels

European supermarkets are coming under NGO pressure to label produce from animals reared on non-GMO feed, following a move from Carrefour.
Read article at foodnavigator.com

Low Carb, High Fat: LCHF. This is such an engaging little video about losing weight.

I apologise for its title, but this little video is really so good and great fun to watch.
It's from a Swedish paleo type movement, LCHF (Low Carb High Fat).

youtube

Note: Paleo is short for paleolithic, and refers to the (Old) Stone Age. Obviously Stone Age people had a very low intake of salt/sodium.

The Telegraph reports that drug and cosmetics firms intend to eliminate animal testing

The Telegraph reports that drug and cosmetics firms intend to cut down on animal testing. - So drug firms and cosmetics firms are going to cut down on animal tests, are they? - Let's hope so! There's been horrifying cruelty along the way. And precious little benefit to the health or safety of the humans the testing is purported to protect.

Does testing drugs on animals result in safer drugs for people? - You're kidding! - What then has been the purpose of testing on animals the drugs intended for use by people? - The purpose of the testing has been to pretend that it makes drugs safer for people, and, most importantly, to allow the drugs eventually to be manufactured and sold.

You cannot trust drug manufacturers. - Avoid pharmaceutical drugs unless they are absolutely necessary. Take them in as small a dose and for as short a time as possible. Report any side-effects.

Bernard Matthews: A man whose debased food products have harmed the health of many thousands of people

The Guardian's obituary for Bernard Matthews: A man whose debased food products have harmed the health of many thousands of people. This obituary seems a fitting tribute.

I always think, in particular, of the school-children who were served his highly-salted, toxic, Turkey Twizzlers as their school dinners, thereby damaging their health at that time and also giving them the taste for salty meals that would continue to damage them throughout their adult years. Children need to be protected from salt and salty food.

The Education Authorities and the Health Authorities that permitted children's health to be damaged by perversions of food in order to save money and to prosper big business, share the responsibility for harming those innocent children, and for much of the nation's present ill-health by way of obesity, high blood pressure, heart problems, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis et al.

EU announces ban on use of bisphenol A (BPA) in babies' bottles from next year

EU announces ban on use of bisphenol A (BPA) in babies' bottles from next year. See BBC News report. That's welcome news.

Nutrition Science or Nutrition Science Betrayed?

The War for Nutrition Science Integrity
"The American Society for Nutrition (ASN), the largest society for nutrition researchers in the US, openly receives support from pharmaceutical companies like Abbott Nutrition and Martek Biosciences, genetic engineering and pesticide giant Monsanto, food processor ConAgra, and junk food suppliers and producers Coca-Cola, Mars, Kraft, McDonald’s, General Mills, and Kellogg’s, not to mention the Sugar Association, Inc. (among many others). Think about that: an organization claiming “excellence in nutrition research and practice” receives major funding from companies making drugs, pesticides, and some of the most health-damaging foods on the planet."

We must all stand up and be counted in the battle against pharmaceutical junk, food junk and manipulated junk science. Good nutrition should be our civilisation’s foundation and a legacy to be bequeathed to future generations. Our health is being sold by scoundrels and bought by arch-criminals.
Read article on the website of the Alliance for Natural Health (USA)

An apocalyptic vision of the future for Ireland's working class under the thumb of the EU and the IMF

Europe’s Dirty Secret: Financial Elite Looting Public Treasuries
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website

Justin Webb is turning me off the Today programme

I used to like Justin Webb's well-modulated voice and thoughtful contributions from America to the BBC News on television. I have a very different view of his work today.

He started off on the wrong foot by replacing Ed Stourton, a broadcaster of great intelligence and experience and unfailing courtesy to interviewees - a courtesy that accompanied mastery of complex material, and did not preclude rigorous inquisition when appropriate. I was sorry that the Today programme lost Stourton, though of course he is not lost to Radio 4 itself.

Webb has fairly recently fashioned himself into a boor with a posh voice, and his patently insincere and constantly repeated, "Sorry to interrupt you," coming as it does mere seconds into his interviewee's scarce-begun reply to a question asked by Webb, and in which you would think he had an interest, is turning me off Today. These ritual ill-mannered interruptions are not forensic questioning to get at the truth; they are an attempt by Webb to make a name for himself. - Unfortunately that name is Boring.

Just say No to GMOs!

Just say No to GMOs! Read on responsibletechnology.org about how "GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems." Protect human health and the health of other animals and other species by saying No to GMO.

Thinking of having a flu jab?

Before deciding to to have the flu vaccination I recommend you read this thoughtful article, written by a medical doctor whose careful evaluations of the evidence I respect. I think you may then decide against having it. Speaking for myself, I haven't had a flu jab for many years - nor any other vaccination, come to that...

A good, natural, non-drug way to protect yourself from infections like colds and flu is to eat plenty of good food (i.e. not processed food) and optimise your nutrition, especially by ensuring you are not deficient in Vitamin D and other important nutrients. And hand hygiene/hand washing is very important because flu microbes can be passed from nose to hand and from hand to another person's hand or from hand to eye by rubbing your eyes, etc.

Avoid 'slimming', because insufficient food/inadequate nutrition lowers your immunity to infection and leaves you less able to fight it and to recover from it. If you want to lose weight, do it the safe, sure, rapid, natural way by avoiding salty and salty food and avoiding diet junk and weight loss drugs.

Improve your health by eating more like the hunter-gatherers and by avoiding added salt, and by avoiding pharmaceutical drugs

For millions of years our species ate what we might call for the sake of brevity a Stone Age diet. These 'hunter-gatherers' lived in the Paleolithic Age. We are separated in time from them by a 'mere' 10-12 thousand years. Our genes are our inheritance from those ancestors of ours, modified by natural selection over that geneological 'blink of a eye' since Neolithic, the New Stone Age, succeeded the old. This brought farming to the service of our kind. It was a mixed blessing: more food to feed more people, but a radical change of diet that caused some harm to the people who ate it.

The Paleolithic diet had mainly comprised meat, fish, nuts, non-starchy vegetables and fruit. The new foods of the Neolithic diet included cereals, i.e. grains. Grains make up such a large part of the modern day diet that it bears little resemblance to the hunter-gatherers' food of long ago and cannot logically be considered best suited to our species, the genes of which have not altered to suit it.

What 'food substance' have I not specifically mentioned? - SALT! - Salt is an even more recent newcomer to the modern diet. Humans started to eat added salt, it has been estimated, between 5,000 and 2,500 years ago, and in recent decades the food industry has, by adding copious amounts of salt to its processed foods, ensured that there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell that our bodies could possibly adapt to so massive a change from the low sodium intake of our ancestors to the very high sodium intake of our societies today.

The outcome is that modern food is unsuitable for the health and nutrition of most people today and this partly explains the growing incidence of what we have come to think of as the new diseases of civilisation - diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, stroke, dementia, etc. And of obesity.

The even more recent scourge that is afflicting our species is the rapidly increasing ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs recklessly prescribed by an over-powerful medical profession, under-informed about the harm their prescriptions do to their unfortunate patients.

You could improve your health, rapidly and immediately, by seriously cutting down on your intake of salt and salty food, by cutting down on sugar and cereals/grains, and by avoiding prescription drugs unless they really are necessary. - Why not start in this way to improve your health this very day? - You have nothing to lose but excess weight, some avoidable pain, and the unnecessary risk of degenerative illnesses. - I wish you Good Health!

The transgressions of the EU and the folly of the Eurozone

The transgressions of the EU and the folly of the eurozone. Read these articles assembled here: Reject the EU!

Suggestion for makers and sellers of tiny softgels

Some dietary supplement retailers supply their products in the form of softgels. I am currently taking supplementary vitamin D3 in the form of tiny softgels. I find them easier to swallow than caplets. But my, they are little rascals! - You tip the container to get one out, and if you are a tad too fast/clumsy and spill a few, then away they go like spilt quicksilver, eager to escape their bounds. I think if the manufacturers or retailers could imprison them in some sort of device to dole out one tiny softgel at a time when you depress a button it would save purchasers a few little searches over the kitchen floor...(o:

Overpaid top hospital consultants continue to ride the gravy train

The Telegraph reports that despite Britain's austerity measures and cuts in public spending, and the assurances made by the ConLib government - to overhaul the system, limiting rewards which currently give most consultants bonuses for life - massive lifetime rewards have continued to be awarded to the top consultants. The awards are meant to be for "outstanding contributions to patient care or research" and yet they are received by more than half of doctors! - How can more than half of them be outstanding? - The correct answer to that question, as you well know, is that they can't. It's got to be a fix, hasn't it? - Overpaid and on the make is a common moral failing in these materialistic days...)o: - Oops! - I forgot! - It's medical ethics, no doubt...

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims takes place on the third Sunday of November every year as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by RoadPeace in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.
Read article at physorg.com

Dr Mercola pillories drug industry's corporate criminality

Dr Mercola pillories Big Pharma's corporate criminality: read this shocking article.

Truthman speaks out against GlaxoSmithKline

Truthman speaks out here against nefarious practices by GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company. He writes about the illegal marketing of depression drug Wellbutrin as a weight-loss aid, and the tragedies caused by SSRI anti-depressants, including Prozac, Seroxat, Citalopram and Zyprexa, because of their grave side-effects. If you ever think of taking any of this pharmaceutical junk yourself, I urge you to ponder Truthman's words and the words of Dr David Healy, an expert on SSRI drugs, and think again. Improving your nutrition is far more likely to lessen depression than any pharmaceutical mind-altering drugs. Can you really trust GSK or other drug companies with the safety of your brain/mind when you read of their iniquitous behaviour? - Your brain is not infinitely elastic. Guard it from assault by psychotropic drugs.

Study suggests garlic capsules help to lower high blood pressure/hypertension

Read this BBC News webpage where there is a great deal more detail about this. Speaking for myself, I try to eat a few cloves of garlic a day and I believe it is doing me good. - A safe, rapid way to reduce high blood pressure naturally without using drugs (which always have undesirable side-effects), is to cut down on salt and salty food. This provides many other health benefits too. - Do yourself a favour and cut down on your salt intake. - You will feel so much better!

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food. I just lost it steadily during that time, without gaining weight at all except when I bought and ate a ready-made sandwich while I was out one day and that week gained a pound. (Bread is very fattening for overweight people because it contains a lot of added salt.)

If you are overweight/fat/obese, you too could lose weight easily and safely by eating less salt and salty food. There is no need to go hungry or to count calories and definitely no need to damage your health by taking weight loss drugs or appetite suppressants. Just eat less salt and salty food. - You will feel so much better!

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today, 14th November 2010, is World Diabetes Day. Here is a page of links to good advice/information for people with diabetes or metabolic syndrome, and for other people to reduce their risk of developing diabetes. It is also helpful to cut down on salt and salty food.

Department of Health favours Big Business over Public Health for its policy on Obesity, Alcohol and diet-related disease

Read Guardian article. "The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned."

I haven't read all of the hundreds of readers' comments published beneath the article, but I've read a lot, and not one of those I've read was other than deeply cynical about this catastrophic decision by the DoH. Even the catering company guilty of providing innocent school-children with salt-laden, additive-rich, nutrient-free crap called Turkey Twizzlers, instead of with proper food for their school dinners years ago, is to play a part in the advice given to the asinine DoH.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better.

NHS provides poor care for elderly surgery patients

BBC News informs us that "Hospitals must improve their care of elderly patients undergoing surgery, an independent review has concluded. Pain management, nutrition and delays were all highlighted as problems by experts from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death. Overall, just over a third of patients were judged to have had good treatment."

I heard this discussed on Radio 4's Today programme the other day and was dismayed that the discussion was steered almost immediately into focussing on the need for better pain relief. - I may be in a minority, even a very small minority, here, but I believe the strong emphasis on pain relief is counterproductive. - What is far more necessary and far more beneficial is to work at pain prevention. - This means the surgeons should perform any necessary surgery ASAP instead of after considerable delays which increase the pain and emotional distress, compromise nutrition, extend the length of hospital stay, and result in more complications and greater need for rehabilitation and caring. - As far as I am concerned, stuff the pain relief and the dedicated pain teams and the multitude of pain-killers with their many harmful side-effects! Concentrate on getting the surgery done as a matter of urgency and compassion, and providing nutritious food and good nursing to promote a speedy recovery.

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer?

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide link to birth defects and child cancer? Intimidatory mob seeks to stifle criticism and discussion. Read article and comments at truth-out.org

NICE issues draft guidance that broken hips should be operated on on the day of admission or the day after

NICE has issued draft guidance that broken hips should be operated on on the day of admission or the day after, as reported by the Telegraph, in order to reduce complications. The report states that "in some hospitals around half of patients wait longer than 48-hours for surgery even though evidence shows it doubles the risk of major complications and death."

Surely this is a no-brainer! If delay "doubles the risk of major complications and death," what on earth are surgeons thinking of? - How can they routinely be doubling the risk of their hip fracture patients (who are mainly elderly, and many of whom are frail and ill) suffering major complications and death? This is disgraceful. Is it an example of covert age discrimination?

The longer the delay, the more pain the patients will suffer, the more physiotherapy and other rehabilitation they will need, the longer stay in hospital, the more support/care at home. - All avoidable extra suffering, all avoidable extra expense.

I've never had a hip fracture, thankfully, but I've had a very complicated fracture of the humerus, which needed an operation. If I had had the operation within a few days, as I was promised on admission to the Northern General Hospital, I would have been back at home again within a week, I am sure, little the worse from the fracture. But because my agonising pain from the splint was discounted and it was almost a fortnight before the arm was operated on, there was massive damage to my right hand - mainly radial nerve palsy and ulna nerve injury - and my stay in hospital lasted a month instead of the few days it would have been with prompt treatment. My (dominant) right hand was completely unusable and intensely painful for months. No one in the system ever apologised or even expressed regret.

I needed many months of physiotherapy and occupational therapy before I could move the hand at all. - It takes you a few seconds to read that sentence. - Just think of having to cope with that yourself: months with a swollen hand, totally unusable and exquisitely tender to the slightest touch. And I have had to have carers to help me since then, though I previously had managed without. Are these inexcusable delays attributable to callousness, ignorance, incompetence or what? - They are certainly unnecessary and they benefit no-one.

If David Cameron speaks out on the subject of human rights abuses while in China

I hope the response he receives will include a reminder that the UK itself has an extremely poor record on human rights. - Read about Chemical Cosh drugs that are harming and bringing early death to many thousands of dementia sufferers. And the appallingly callous treatment in the Staffordshire Hospital that resulted in terrible suffering and premature death for hundreds of patients. And the many millions of UK citizens (mostly women) gravely harmed for decades by tranquillisers and other toxic psychotropic drugs which are still being prescribed by foolish doctors. - Just a few examples of the atrocious treatment far too many UK citizens routinely receive from the NHS.

Medical Journals Also Have Conflicts Of Interest

Much attention has been paid to conflicts of interest relating to the pharmaceutical industry, but where do medical journals fit in this equation? A new study notes that journals also have vested interests that warrant disclosure. Specifically, industry-supported clinical trials can boost a journal’s so-called impact factor by generating greater distribution of reprints that increase citation rates and, of course, revenue. The trials are often supported by drugmakers, which purchase reprints.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Novartis Downplayed Bone Drugs' Risks, Lawyer Told Jurors

Novartis AG officials downplayed risks that the drugmaker’s bone-strengthening medicines Aredia and Zometa could destroy patients’ jaws, a lawyer for a woman suing the company told a North Carolina jury. Officials of the Basel, Switzerland-based drug company got reports from doctors as early as 2002 that Rita Fussman and other cancer patients taking Aredia and Zometa to prevent bone loss during treatment suffered irreplaceable jawbone damage, Bob Germany, a lawyer for Fussman’s family, said in opening statements in a trial over the medicines.
Read article at Bloomberg.com

Dangerous chemicals lining some junk food wrappers are being ingested along with the food

"University of Toronto scientists have found that chemicals used to line junk food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are migrating into food and being ingested by people where they are contributing to chemical contamination observed in blood." - Read ScienceDaily news item here.

Addictive tranx drugs recklessly over-prescribed long ago are linked to lasting brain damage

Yesterday's Independent on Sunday article informs us that the link between benzodiazepines and similar psychotropic drugs and brain shrinkage was made years 30 years ago and the Medical Research Council agreed in 1982 there should be large-scale studies done, but they were not done. I urge you to read the article.

The IoS tells us that Catherine Hopkins, the legal director of Action against Medical Accidents, has stated, "The failure to carry out research into the effect of benzodiazepines has exposed huge numbers of people to the risk of brain damage. This research urgently needs to be carried out, and if the results confirm the suspicions of the 1981 expert group, it could lead to one of the biggest group actions for damages against the Government and the MRC ever seen in the courts.""

I remember these extremely harmful, extremely addictive tranquilliser and hypnotic drugs - Valium, Librium, Mogadon, et al being prescribed with reckless abandon for all kinds of purported conditions. I remember people taking them in the 60s and 70s - taking them in good faith - and some of them becoming Zombie-like in consequence. Years later I took them myself (they were mainly prescribed to women, in a ghastly example of rampant medical sexism), along with amitriptyline, a dangerous anti-depressant, as the caring professions played a cruel game of pretending that my agonising toothache was 'really' Depression - still a favourite 'diagnosis'/insult used to cover up dental/medical negligence. Read my Mensa article on Cruelty, Clinical Negligence and the Abuse of Power in the NHS

It took me 8 months of monumentally difficult struggle to wean myself off the Mogadon, which is reportedly far more addictive than heroin. Some poor souls took these drugs while pregnant and have had to live with the corrosive guilt of irreparably damaging their babies while they were still in the womb. Many unfortunate victims are still addicted to tranquillisers today, decades after starting to take the drugs, and incredibly, doctors are still prescribing these drugs. I would strongly advise anyone to decline to take any of this pharmaceutical junk. It is far more likely to harm you than to help you.

The country should be grateful to Esther Rantzen, who on her programme, That's Life, fought to curb the terrible consequences of the medical profession's love affair with tranquillisers. Until she took up the matter, doctors, guided by profit-motivated, not-to-be-trusted drug company reps, were assuring patients who reported their dreadful symptoms of addiction that the drugs had not caused their symptoms and that they should continue to take them.

U.S. Government Says Human and Other Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patents

The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry. The new position was declared in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice in a case involving two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. “We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA,” the brief said.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
Comment from Dr Rath Foundation: The U.S. federal government should be applauded for taking this important position against the multi-trillion dollar “business with disease.” The human genome − the blueprint of life and the biological basis of our existence − belongs to all mankind. Efforts to own this genetic code with the goal to re-build, sell and manipulate the human body or parts of it for corporate gain, should therefore be prohibited.

CEOs should be prosecuted when pharmaceutical companies break the law

CEOs should be prosecuted when pharmaceutical companies break the law.

See this NewScientist article by Paul Thacker, an investigator at the Project On Government Oversight, a non-profit organisation exposing waste, fraud and abuse in federal government.

Indian Farmers Protesting Against GM Crops

Indian farmers have been mobilizing to protest the introduction of genetically modified crops into India and what they see as a takeover of Indian agriculture by Monsanto and other multinational biotech giants. The protesters say the crops are disrupting the domestic seed market and reducing income for all farmers.
Read article on the EIN News website

Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica - Radio 4's Book of the Week

So good to listen this week to Philip Larkin's 'Letters to Monica', his woman-friend of 40 years or so, to whom he wrote reams of letters. The readings are Radio 4's Book of the Week and the episodes are read by Hugh Bonneville. The next episode will be the last one, but you can listen to them again on the BBC iPlayer for a few days more. - Details here: Book of the Week. The letters give the lie to Larkin's being a dour, depressing fellow, as some people think. They are so warm, so personal, so inventive. I feel that any Monica would have treasured them, as this Monica must have, since, apparently, nearly two thousand letters were discovered after her death.

Since I first was introduced to Larkin's poetry I have liked it quite inordinately. I also enjoyed "A Girl in Winter", one of his two novels. When working in the Market Research department at Reckitt's in the holidays as a student, I did a bit of work for Philip Larkin in connection with the use of the stacks at the university library. When the work was completed, my boss went to lunch with my idol (at that time), and she brought me his autograph, neat and dated, on University of Hull headed paper. I was pleased to have it of course, but would have been so delighted if I could have been the one who had lunch with him...

Next month will see the 25th anniversary of Larkin's death. There are some celebratory (free) lectures still to come at the University of Hull. For details see this Philip Larkin Society webpage.

ANH seeks donations to fund legal battle against EU herb laws

The Alliance for Natural Health International (ANH-Intl) and the European Benefyt Foundation (EBF) have issued a call for €100,000 in donations to fund legal battle against the 2004 Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive.
Read article at nutringredients.com
Comment: To learn more about the proposed legal challenge to the ‘Brussels EU’ bans on traditional herbal medicines, click here.

Australians draw attention to the health benefits of lower salt intake and the need for mandatory reductions in salt content of manufactured foods

Australia's experts are pointing out that voluntary reductions are not having much effect because of the self-serving irresponsibility of the food companies. Read Telegraph article. It is certainly high time that salt content of processed food be limited by law.

Read about the politics of salt reduction.

Zoe has some good ideas about reducing obesity

This Daily Mail article informs us that Zoe Harcombe has written a book which attributes the increasing incidence of obesity on a radical change in government dietary advice a few decades ago, and the promulgation of myths about what is healthy food and how to reduce obesity. I tend to agree with her and I believe that people who follow her advice are likely to be successful in losing some of their excess weight and in improving their health. I especially agree with her in her criticism of the involvement of the food and drink industry in public health advice.

The article does not, however, mention salt intake or salt sensitivity, or that people who are sensitive or vulnerable to salt gain weight because of salt intake, which for them results in fluid retention leading to obesity. Salt and salty food is indeed the main cause of child obesity. Protecting toddlers and small children from high salt intake protects them from many health problems in addition to protecting them from the main factor in children becoming obese.

The other very important omission from the article is the role of pharmaceutical drugs in causing obesity. Prescribed drugs are a major cause of obesity, since many, possibly most, prescription drugs cause fluid retention/obesity when they are taken for an extended period of time. Drugs that routinely tend to cause overweight/obesity include many steroids, HRT, most anti-depressants, anti-epileptics, anti-psychotics, etc. See steroids and HRT and amitriptyline and other anti-depressants.

See Sodium in Foods and my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection. You may also like to read my political page about salt, pharmaceuticals and medical misinformation leading to obesity and a host of avoidable ill-health and suffering.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!