Blogger: State Agency Censored Online Health Food Advice Column

Steven Cooksey says all he wanted to do was help other diabetics get healthy, but a North Carolina agency tried to censor his online healthy food advice column, saying he was not a licensed dietitian.

Cooksey filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court, saying the state violated his free speech rights.

“When did it become illegal to tell people to eat meats and vegetables?” Cooksey said in an interview with The Associated Press. “How is it illegal to tell people not to eat grains? We’re talking about healthy eating. This is wrong.”

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http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/05/30/blogger-state-agency-censored-online-health-food-advice-column/

Press release: Childhood Cancer 2012 - mobile phones

Childhood Cancer 2012: International Scientific Conference on Early Exposures and Childhood Cancer

New theory on how mobile phones could cause brain cancer

A new theory about how radiation from mobile phones might induce brain cancer will be presented for the first time today (Wednesday 25th April) at the Childhood Cancer 2012 conference in London.

A landmark report by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency last year concluded that there is a possible link between mobile phone use and brain cancer, but how that might happen has remained unclear (1). Explaining the mechanism of how mobile phone radiation might cause cancer is vital for avoiding and ultimately preventing the disease.

The conference will hear that one explanation could be that the radiation produced from mobile phones could activate signaling pathways within brain cells and stimulate the growth of cancer cells. Professor Dariusz Leszczynski, of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland, has gathered together the findings from several studies published thus far, taken the common denominators and compared them to how gliomas, the most common form of brain tumour (2), develop (3).

Read More:

http://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/News/press-release-childhood-cancer-2012-mobile-phones

Paul Fassa - CDC wants to go after all baby boomers with vaccines for a phantom virus

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is predicting an epidemic of hepatitis C (Hep-C) among baby boomers. So in order to preempt this epidemic, they have drafted a proposition to have everyone born between 1945 and 1965 tested for Hep-C in order to receive treatments and vaccinations (after diagnosis) with Hep-A and B vaccines.

That seems like a nasty proposition: two vaccinations that pretend to be designed for Hep-C. The Hep-B vaccine has an impressive track record of reported serious adverse reactions and deaths. They don't have a Hep-C vaccination. Could it be because there is no virus?

Dr. Michael Tierra and Sepp Hasslberger report how Chiron, a diagnostic department of Novartis Vaccines, spent years struggling to find a Hep-C virus. After lots of manipulation the came up with footprint of a shadow, or a phantom virus, that enabled them to create a blood screening test for Hep-C that has made them a lot of money.

Normally, when high liver enzyme counts are discovered in a blood test, a Hep-C test is ordered. The experts who debunk this test argue that the phantom virus does not pass the full criteria of an actual infectious virus.

Read More:

http://www.naturalnews.com/036021_CDC_hepatitis_baby_boomers.html

Greenland's Loss of Ice Mass During the Last 10 Years Is Unusually High Compared to Last 50 Years

 Loss through melting and iceberg calving during the last 10 years is unusually high compared to the last 50 years

The Greenland ice sheet continues to lose mass and thus contributes at about 0.7 millimeters per year to the currently observed sea level change of about 3 mm per year. This trend increases each year by a further 0.07 millimeters per year. The pattern and temporal nature of loss is complex. The mass loss is largest in southwest and northwest Greenland; the respective contributions of melting, iceberg calving and fluctuations in snow accumulation differing considerably.

This result has been published by an international research group led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in the latest issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1 June 2012. The result was made possible by a new comparison of three different types of satellite observations: measurements of the change in gravity by changes in ice mass with the satellite pair GRACE, height variation with the laser altimeter on the NASA satellite ICESat and determination of the difference between the accumulation of regional atmospheric models and the glacier discharge, as measured by satellite radar data.

For the first time and for each region, the researchers could determine with unprecedented precision which percentage melting, iceberg calving and fluctuations in rainfall have on the current mass loss. "Such an increase in mass loss in the northwest after 2005 is partly due to heavy snowfall in the years before", says GFZ scientist Ingo Sasgen, head of the study. "The previous mass gain was reduced in subsequent years. Similarly in eastern Greenland: In the years 2008 and 2009 there was even a mass increase". As the researchers were able to show, this was not due to decreased glacier velocities, but because of two winters with very heavy snowfall. Meanwhile, the loss of ice mass continues here. For all studied regions the melting and calving periods between 2002 and 2011 are extraordinarily high compared to those of the last five decades.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120529133644.htm

Children exposed to the common pollutant naphthalene show signs of chromosomal damage

According to a new study, children exposed to high levels of the common air pollutant naphthalene are at increased risk for chromosomal aberrations (CAs), which have been previously associated with cancer. These include chromosomal translocations, a potentially more harmful and long-lasting subtype of CAs.

Researchers from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report the new findings in Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Naphthalene is found in both outdoor and indoor urban air. It is present in automotive exhaust, tobacco smoke, and is the primary component of household mothball fumes. Classified as a possible carcinogen by the International Agency for Cancer Research, naphthalene belongs to a class of air pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Prior research at the CCCEH has established a link between prenatal exposure to PAH and increased risk for childhood obesity, IQ deficits, and CAs. The new study is the first to present evidence in humans of CAs, including translocations, associated with exposure to one specific PAH—naphthalene—during childhood.

Read More:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/cums-cet052912.php

Martha Rosenberg - The Mind Druggers: Psychiatrists Re-Affirm Fealty to Big Pharma

The first week in May brought a new leader in France and new prospects for same sex couples seeking marriage. But at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, attended by 11,000 psychiatrists, it was the same old same old. Instead of listening to the public outcry about overmedicated children, soldiers, elderly and everyday people watching too many drug ads, the psychiatry group re-affirmed its resolve to pathologize healthy people on behalf of its big brother, Big Pharma.

This is the year the APA puts the finishing touches on DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a compendium that determines what treatments insurers will cover, what disorders merit funding as “public health” threats and of course, Pharma marketing and profits. Some question the objectivity of a disorder manual written by those who stand to benefit from an enlarged patient pool and new diseases. Furthering the appearance of self-dealing is the revelation that 57 percent of the DSM-5′s authors have Pharma links.

No kidding. Scheduled presenters at this year’s meeting included former APA president Alan F. Schatzberg, MD and Charles Nemeroff, MD, both investigated by Congress for murky Pharma income. Nemeroff’s  $9.3 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study depression was suspended, which happens rarely, when the government found out he had simultaneously taken $1.2 million from the antidepressant Paxil manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, Nemeroff. Oops. But now he is again basking in taxpayer money, recently awarded a $2 million five-year grant from the NIMH to study the “prospective determination of psychobiological risk factors of post-traumatic stress disorder.”  Would should the government hold a grudge?

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/25/the-mind-druggers/

Andrew J. Bacevich - Unleashed: Globalizing the Global War on Terror

As he campaigns for reelection, President Obama periodically reminds audiences of his success in terminating the deeply unpopular Iraq War.  With fingers crossed for luck, he vows to do the same with the equally unpopular war in Afghanistan.  If not exactly a peacemaker, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president can (with some justification) at least claim credit for being a war-ender.

Yet when it comes to military policy, the Obama administration’s success in shutting down wars conducted in plain sight tells only half the story, and the lesser half at that.  More significant has been this president’s enthusiasm for instigating or expanding secret wars, those conducted out of sight and by commandos.

President Franklin Roosevelt may not have invented the airplane, but during World War II he transformed strategic bombing into one of the principal emblems of the reigning American way of war.  General Dwight D. Eisenhower had nothing to do with the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb.  Yet, as president, Ike’s strategy of Massive Retaliation made nukes the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy.

Read More:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175547/

Robert Reich - How to Avoid the Austerity Trap But Still Deal With the Budget Deficit

We now know austerity economics is bad for weak economies facing large budget deficits. Much of Europe is in recession because of budget cuts demanded by Germany. And as Europe’s economies shrink, their debts become proportionally larger, making a bad situation worse.

The way to avoid this austerity trap is to get growth and jobs back first, and only then tackle budget deficits. 

The U.S. hasn’t yet fallen into the trap, but it could soon. Last week the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warned we’ll be in recession early next year if the Bush tax cuts end as scheduled on January 1, and if more than $100 billion is automatically cut from federal spending, as required by Congress’s failure last August to reach a budget deal. 

Predictably, Capitol Hill is deadlocked. Democrats refuse to extend the Bush tax cuts for high earners and Republicans refuse to delay the budget cuts. 

If recent history is any guide, a deal will be struck at the last moment – during a lame-duck Congress, some time in late December. And it will only be to remove the January 1 trigger. Keep everything as it is, the Bush tax cuts as well as current spending, and kick the can down the road into 2013 and beyond. 

Which means no plan for reducing the budget deficit. 

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/23939473049

Alexander Higgins - Exclusive – Wall Street Banks Are Secretly Building A Mega Private Army

Wall Street banks have secretly taken over US firearms and ammunition manufacturers and the world’s largest mercenary firms in a stealth build up private military force.

A Daily KOs article reveals that Wall Street banks have used private equity firms to acquire and launch a massive stealth takeover of private security firms, US ammo and gun manufacturers, uniforms, silencers and an army of mercenaries to build what amounts to the world’s largest private army.

At the same time the private mercenary companies they now control, which include the likes of  Dynacorp and the notorious name changing Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi,  have been authorized under Department of Defense DIRECTIVE NUMBER 3025.18 to actually conduct policing operations inside the United States.

The article reveals Citi Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank have provide huge amounts of funding to two private Wall Street equity firms, Cerebus and Veritas Equity, which in turn have used umbrella companies such as Freedom Corp., to engage in stealth takeovers and weapons stockpiling which has consumed the likes of  several gun manufacturers and ammunition manufacturers including Remington, Cobbs, H&R, Marlin, Dakota, and Bushmaker.

Read More:

http://thetruthisnow.com/archives/political/exclusive-wall-street-banks-are-secretly-building-a-mega-private-army/

Simon Johnson - The End Of The Euro: A Survivor’s Guide

In every economic crisis there comes a moment of clarity.  In Europe soon, millions of people will wake up to realize that the euro-as-we-know-it is gone.  Economic chaos awaits them.

To understand why, first strip away your illusions.  Europe’s crisis to date is a series of supposedly “decisive” turning points that each turned out to be just another step down a steep hill.  Greece’s upcoming election on June 17 is another such moment.  While the so-called “pro-bailout” forces may prevail in terms of parliamentary seats, some form of new currency will soon flood the streets of Athens.  It is already nearly impossible to save Greek membership in the euro area: depositors flee banks, taxpayers delay tax payments, and companies postpone paying their suppliers – either because they can’t pay or because they expect soon to be able to pay in cheap drachma.

The troika of the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) has proved unable to restore the prospect of recovery in Greece, and any new lending program would run into the same difficulties.  In apparent frustration, the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, remarked last week, “As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time.”

Read More:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/05/28/the-end-of-the-euro-a-survivors-guide/#more-10166