Low cholesterol associated with enhanced risk of death in heart failure patients

  Lest you think this is just partisan propaganda, these are real, recorded votes in the House of Representatives [3].

The Republicans seem to have it in for women and not just against health insurance covering reproductive health care, Planned Parenthood’s other services, or privacy for the medical records of victims of rape and incest. The Republicans en-mass voted to repeal protections to stop health insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of gender.

On other consumer protections – forget it. The Republicans are indentured to the worst of their corporate paymasters. The Republicans either do nothing to help or actually push for rollbacks. No minimum wage to give 30 million Americans the same pay workers got back in 1968, adjusted for inflation. The Chamber of Commerce says no. So Boehner and Cantor curtsy.

In a frenzy, House Republicans have voted to repeal the “Affordable Care Act” 33 times. Be assured their hatred for Obamacare is not because they want full Medicare for all. It is because they want to voucherize Medicare and hand patients over to the avaricious Aetnas and the Pfizers who return the favor with campaign cash.

House Republicans rage against any attempts to stop the shipping or outsourcing of American jobs to communist and fascist regimes abroad that know how to keep their workers in powerless penury. Why? Because that is what the non-patriotic U.S. global corporations want them to do. Anything Big Oil wants, it gets– retain big subsidies, tax breaks, weaken pollution restrictions, lease everywhere, and even give relief to oil companies when they damaged the Gulf Coast.

House Republicans have a conflict of interest between their families’ lungs and their corporatized minds. Resolution? Vote to weaken the Clean Air Act, drinking water safety standards, cut funding for these cancer preventing, health protecting programs while pushing for more military weapons and bloated Pentagon budgets. The Republicans went so far as to vote for polluters over children, pregnant women and people who live in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. These Republicans voted to block the EPA mercury and air toxics standards that the agency estimated would save 12,000 lives every year and prevent more than one million asthma attacks.

With unseemly fervor, House Republicans want to generally weaken the National Labor Relations Board and labor laws. But when it comes to protecting the lowest tax rates and loopholes for the very wealthy, they are Horatio at the Bridge. When the top two percent engage in financial fraud (credit cards, mortgages and student loans, abuse of seniors) or urge privatizing social security, the Boehners and the Cantors are block-tackling anyone in the House who begs to push law and order for the Rich and Corporate or keep “the security” in social security.

For the poor, let them eat less. Hunger in America is real. But not real enough for the Republicans to stop wanting to cut these food programs. While Republicans campaign against Obama for not doing anything to lower gasoline prices, they are voting against measures to regulate oil and gas speculators who drive up gas prices, a fact recognized by the CEO of Exxon a few years ago in a Senate hearing.

The above are just a sample of what the House Republicans passed or blocked in the House. Even worse are what many of them wanted to summarily abolish, such as the EPA, OSHA, and the IRS. The meat-axe Republicans have trouble telling the public how the important functions performed by these agencies would be handled. The Republicans dismiss the work of health and safety agencies as junk science (e.g. regarding climate change). Fortunately, the Senate has rejected most of their madness.

How do such people get elected? Is it just money and smooth slogans? Is it a lack of competition in rigged districts? Is it a winner-take-all, two-party duopoly where more than half the voters sit out the election? Is it shocking disengagement by the cynical or hopeless public, shorn of any rigorous expectation levels?

For the time being, go to the Democratic House Caucus website [3]. Ponder the fate of our Republic. Ask why we have almost unconditionally given up our enormous sovereign power of “We the People” to those out-of-control, raging members of Congress.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/low-cholesterol-associated-with-enhanced-risk-of-death-in-heart-failure-patients/

Chemistry Council trying to lobby Washington to cut off funding for research on carcinogens

Every two years, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which operates under the banner of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), releases a congressionally-mandated report entitled the "Report on Carcinogens" (RoC) that identifies various agents, substances, mixtures, or exposures that are known to cause cancer. But the American Chemical Society (ACS), which represents many of the biggest names in the cancer-causing chemical industry, is currently trying to lobby Congress to stop the publishing of this important document.

Because the latest RoC lists formaldehyde, a chemical commonly used in both consumer and industrial products, as a definitive cause of cancer, and styrene, another common household chemical, as a suspected carcinogen, the chemical industry is up in arms about its potential profit losses. So in the spirit of Big Tobacco's approach to dealing with inconvenient science, the chemical industry is now desperately trying to muddle the scientific process by paying off Congress to not only withhold the truth about these and other deadly chemicals, but also to prevent the public from accessing this information by blocking funding for future publishings of the RoC.

"The way the free market is supposed to work is that you have information," Lynn Goldman, Dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University (GWU), is quoted as saying by the New York Times (NYT) about the importance of the RoC report. "They're (thechemical companies) trying to squelch that information."

Similar stall tactics were used by the chemical industry back in the 1930s when the safety of asbestos was first called into question. Just like today, industry lobbyists at that time denied all the emerging science about the serious dangers of asbestos, insisting that it was all "ill-informed and exaggerated" bunk, according to the NYT. The chemical was eventually exposed and banned in the 1980s, of course, but by this point, millions of people had already been needlessly exposed to asbestos, with roughly 10,000 of them now die every year as a result of asbestos-related disease.

"The industrial chemical formaldehyde and a botanical known as aristolochic acids are listed as known human carcinogens," says a National Institutes of Health (NIH) announcement about the eight new substances added to the 2011 RoC, which the chemical industry is trying to keep under wraps. "Six other substances -- captafol, cobalt-tungsten carbide (in powder or hard metal form), certain inhalable glass wool fibers, o-nitrotoluene, riddelliine, and styrene -- are added as substances that are reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens." (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2011/june10/)

You can read the full 2011 RoC here:
http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=03C9AF75-E1BF-FF40-DBA9EC0928DF8B15

http://www.naturalnews.com/037724_Chemistry_Council_lobbying_carcinogens.html

Another Study Finds GMO Compounds in 100% of Pregnant Women and Fetuses

In many ways we are searching for real science, not funded by the GMO companies themselves, to tell us the truth about genetically modified organisms and their dangers. Because these companies control access to their chemicals and any related research, what we have is little. But from the little we know, there is much to fear concerning genetically modified organisms.

Most recently, scientists in Canada conducted a study on pregnant and non-pregnant women, looking for the chemicals found in pesticides related to genetically modified foods. What they found was frightening indeed.

100% of Women Had At Least 1 of These Toxins

According to GreenMedInfo.com, the scientists were looking for 5 basic toxins. Those include: 

• Glyphosate (Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide)
• Gluphosinate (an herbicide)
• AMPA (a metabolite of glyphosate)
• 3-MMPA (a metabolite of gluphosinate)
• Cry1Ab (the Bt toxin of gluphosinate)

All women had at least one of the toxins present in their blood, but there were differences between the pregnant and non-pregnant women. A large percentage of non-pregnant study subjects had both glyphosate and gluphosinate in their blood, while the pregnant women did not. However, 100% of pregnant women studied had 3-MPPA in their blood and 93% had Cry1Ab. Even more troubling—100% of fetal cords studied had 3-MPPA and 80% had Cry1Ab.

So, not only do all women likely have some of these GMO toxins in them, but they are passing it on to their children. This is similar to the research conducted by a German university finding glyphosate in all urine samples tested.

What does this all mean and what are the immediate dangers? That’s where more research is needed, though research is tightly controlled by the companies with the patents. We know that 3-MPPA is a propionic acid. According to GMI’s report, this means it is classified as a Bad Actor Chemical and has warnings of cramping, burning, nausea, shock, vomiting, and sore throat if ingested. As for Cry1Ab, Greenpeace reports that it is an immunogen, meaning it creates an immune system response and could possibly increase the existing problem of antibiotic resistant infections.

All five of these compounds that the researchers looked for in their study subjects are classified as Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). Yes, these chemicals that carry serious warnings when offered under other circumstances– the same ones that kill pests– our government assures us, are safe.

What can you do? Whenever possible, steer clear of products containing GMO ingredients. Also, support California’s Proposition 37, which will require the labeling of such ingredients and could pave the way for other states and even the nation to follow suit. Additionally, DE-support Monsanto, a company shelling out millions to go against Prop 37 and spreading lies about GMO labeling.

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/10/another-study-finds-gmo-compounds-in.html

India Puts GM Food Crops Under Microscope

  Environmental activists are cautiously optimistic that a call by a court-appointed technical committee for a ten-year moratorium on open field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops will shelve plans to introduce bio-engineered foods in this largely agricultural country.

“We are now waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will accept the recommendations of its own committee at the next hearing on Oct. 29,” said Devinder Sharma, chairman of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, a collective of agriculture scientists, economists, biotechnologists, farmers and environmentalists.

The committee – appointed in May to examine questions of safety raised in a petition filed by environmental activist Aruna Rodrigues – pointed to serious gaps in India’s present regulatory framework for GM crops in an interim report released on Oct. 18.

In particular, the committee was asked to look at open field trials of food crops spliced with genes taken from the soil bacterium Bacillus thurigiensis (Bt), an insecticide whose impact on human health is unknown.

Noting that there “have been several cases of ignoring problematic aspects of the data in the safety dossiers”, the committee suggested reexamination “by international experts who have the necessary experience”.

In February 2010, the then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had ordered a moratorium on Bt brinjal (also called aubergine or eggplant), based on a series of public hearings on the issue – though this was not extended to field trials of other Bt food crops.

A parliamentary standing committee on GM crops appeared to reflect the public mood when it recommended in August that GM crop trials be banned and future research conducted only under tight regulation.

“The government should see the writing on the wall. It is now amply clear that this country of 1.2 billion people, 70 percent of whom are dependent on agriculture, is strongly against the introduction of GM crops,” said Sharma.

According to Sharma wide publicity given to a recent study by French scientists led by Gilles-Eric Seralini at the University of Caen, which showed rats fed with GM corn developing tumours, has had an impact on the Indian public as well as scientists and experts.

“The government should see the writing on the wall. It is now amply clear that this country of 1.2 billion people, 70 percent of whom are dependent on agriculture, is strongly against the introduction of GM crops.”

In fact, the court’s committee has recommended that long-term and inter-generational studies on rodents be added to tests to be performed on all GM crops in India, whether approved or pending approval.

Sharma said the Supreme Court’s decision is bound to have a bearing on resistance in Europe to GM food crops, because of safety concerns. Spain is currently the only country in the European Union that grows a GM food crop and this is limited to GM corn to be used as animal feed.

Kavita Kuruganti, a consultant with the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, a Hyderabad-based organisation working on sustainable agriculture in partnership with non-government organisations, said it is significant that the court’s committee had called for reexamination of all biosafety data for approved and pipeline GM products.

The committee’s report contradicts advice from the prime minister’s scientific advisory council (SAC) on biotechnology and agriculture, which complained in an Oct. 9 release, “A science-informed, evidence-based approach is lacking in the current debate on biotechnologies for agriculture.”

But Kuruganti told IPS that the Supreme Court’s committee consisted entirely of distinguished scientists and that their opinions “cannot be dismissed as unscientific as they (have) rationalised each of their recommendations.”

Arguing in favour of introducing GM food crops in India, the SAC statement claimed:  “Land availability and quality, water, low productivity, drought and salinity, biotic stresses, post-harvest losses are all serious concerns that will endanger our food and nutrition security with potentially serious additional affects as a result of climate change.”

However, the SAC acknowledged, “There is concern about the costs at which seeds (from multinational companies that have patents on GM) are available to our farmers, particularly poor farmers.”

”The experience with non-food GM crops, particularly Bt cotton, has been that ordinary farmers do not benefit because of the high costs of seeds and inputs,” said Ramachandra Pillai, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha (All India Farmers Forum) that has 14 million members and is affiliated with the Marxist Communist Party of India.

Pillai told IPS that his party was not opposed to modern agricultural biotechnology, but wanted public-sector involvement because “right now the main driving force behind GM crops seems to be the profit motive, which may bypass such burning issues as food security, malnutrition, poverty alleviation and unemployment.”

Pillai said it was especially important to have government oversight in the case of GM food crops to dispel fears that the private sector was ignoring concerns around public safety.

The court-appointed committee has called for specifically designated and certified field trial sites, adequate preliminary testing and the creation of an independent panel of scientists to evaluate biosafety data on each GM crop in the pipeline.

Suman Sahai who leads Gene Campaign, a Delhi-based NGO, said the report has brought home the fact that the “existing regulatory system for introducing GM crops into the country was hugely compromised.”

Sahai told IPS that the regulatory authorities had, for example, ignored the interests of organic farmers who stand to be ruined if their crops are contaminated by GM crops, several of which are currently under development in India.

Based on India being a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol that recognises biodiversity as a long-term resource, the committee recommended a complete ban on field trials of crops for which India is a centre of origin or diversity, “as transgenics can contaminate and adversely affect biodiversity.”

“For the first time, there is potential legal backing to recommendations that other inquiries have thrown up, including those made by the parliamentary standing committee,” Kuruganti said.

“There is now a chance for monitoring to become a reality rather than just an existence on paper,” she said. “This will also make the deployment of technology into a credible, confidence-inspiring process – that is, once the Supreme Court accepts the recommendations of its committee and passes suitable orders.”

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/10/india-puts-gm-food-crops-under-microscope/

Serious birth complications rising in the U.S

Severe complications from childbirth are rare in the U.S., but they are becoming more common, a new government study finds.

Between 1998 and 2009, the rate of serious complications like heart attack, stroke, severe bleeding and kidney failure during or after childbirth roughly doubled among U.S. women, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 2008-2009, there were 129 cases of severe complications for every 10,000 women who delivered in a hospital. That was up 75 percent from a decade earlier.

At the same time, complications during women's post-delivery hospital stay also rose: There were 29 cases for every 10,000 women - up 114 percent from 10 years before.

Serious complications and deaths from childbirth are still uncommon in the U.S. Over four million women give birth each year, and this study found about 590,000 cases of severe complications over 11 years.

"We don't want to send the message that pregnant women should be afraid," said Dr. William M. Callaghan of the CDC, who led the study.

With this type of study, which used discharge records from U.S. hospitals, it's not possible to tell why childbirth complications rose, Callaghan said.

But it's "well-documented" from other research that more women are giving birth at older ages, are obese, or have certain health conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, he added.

There are also more young women with serious conditions, like congenital heart defects, who are surviving and having children.

"The characteristics of the pregnant population are changing," Callaghan said, so it's not unexpected that rates of certain complications might rise.

Another recent CDC study found that minority women are at particular risk. Between 1993 and 2006, minority women accounted for 41 percent of all births nationwide, but 62 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths.

Black women were at greatest risk. For every 100,000 babies born to African Americans, 32 to 35 mothers died. That was roughly four times the rate among white mothers.

Heart problems were the most common cause of death. And in this latest study, Callaghan's team found that one childbirth complication - the need for cardiac surgery during or after delivery - showed a "dramatic" rise over time.

It was still rare: In 2008-2009, just under 5 per 10,000 women needed a heart procedure during delivery, for example. But that was up 75 percent from a decade before.

Callaghan said the bottom line for women is to be as healthy as possible before pregnancy. Losing weight if you are obese, and getting high blood pressure and diabetes under control, are some ways to do that.

If you have existing medical conditions, like heart disease, it's even more important to see your doctor before pregnancy, Callaghan said.

"Not all complications can be avoided, of course," he said. "But the best outcomes happen when a woman is as healthy as possible going into pregnancy."

He added that some women with pre-existing medical conditions may need to see an obstetrician who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.

"Most women do fine," however, Callaghan said. "And even most women with significant disease before pregnancy do fine."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/us-birth-complications-idUSBRE89M1AL20121023

The $100 Billion Storm: 17 Things You Should Know About Hurricane Sandy

Meteorologists are warning that Hurricane Sandy could potentially be the worst storm to hit the east coast of the United States in 100 years.  Do you remember "the perfect storm" back in 1991?  That storm was so bad that Hollywood made a blockbuster movie starring George Clooney about it.  Well, this storm is going to be much worse.  When I first heard about Hurricane Sandy, I didn't make that much of it.  I figured that the east coast would get some wind and some rain and that they would whine about it a bit but that everything would be just fine.  But then I started looking into this storm a bit more.  It turns out that this storm is even larger than Hurricane Katrina was.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has categorized the destructive potential of this storm to be 5.8 on a scale that goes from 0 to 6.  So don't be fooled when you hear that this is only a "category 1 storm" or that the maximum winds will only be around 80 MPH.  It is the unprecedented size of this storm and the mind boggling storm surges that it is producing that truly make it dangerous.  It is being reported that Hurricane Sandy is more than 1,000 miles across from one end to the other.  Meteorologists have never seen anything quite like this before, and we are most definitely in unprecedented territory.  One meteorologist is already projecting that this megastorm could cause 100 billion dollars in damage, but the true amount of devastation will likely not be fully known for weeks.  If you live in the northeast part of the United States, you definitely want to buckle up because you are about to get absolutely hammered.

The following are 17 things that you should know about Hurricane Sandy...

#1 Hurricane Sandy has been dubbed "the Frankenstorm" and many believe that this could be the worst storm to hit the east coast in 100 years.

#2 This is an absolutely massive megastorm.  It is being reported that tropical storm-force winds can be felt 520 miles away from the center of the storm.

#3 It is being reported that the sheer size of this storm is absolutely unprecedented...

Since records of storm size began in 1988, no tropical storm or hurricane has been larger, reports meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground.

#4 Hurricane Sandy has already forced the cancellation of over 5,000 flights.

#5 Mayor Bloomberg has announced a mandatory evacuation for all New York City residents that are living in "Zone A".

#6 It is being projected that the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy could be up to 15 feet above sea level in some areas of New York City.

#7 New York City could potentially experience wind speeds of 80 MPH or higher.

#8 Subway service in New York City is being shut down at 7 PM on Sunday evening.  There is a very real possibility that the New York City subway system could be severely flooded by this storm.  That could be quite crippling, because about 4.3 million people ride the subway in New York every single day.

#9 It has been announced that all public schools in New York City will be closed on Monday.

#10 Schools in Boston will be shut down on Monday as well.

#11 The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange will be closed on Monday.

#12 50,000 people living along the coast in Delaware have been ordered to evacuate.

#13 Some parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina could get up to 2 feet of snow.

#14 It is being estimated that 10 million people living along the east coast could lose power thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

#15 A state of emergency has already been declared in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

#16 Approximately 50 million people live in the areas that will be directly affected by this storm.

#17 Meteorologist Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions is projecting that Hurricane Sandy could potentially cause a total of 100 billion dollars in damage to the U.S. economy.  That would make it a far more costly disaster than Hurricane Katrina.

Many meteorologists are calling this storm a "worst case scenario".  If you live along the east coast, please take the warnings that you are getting from public officials very seriously.  According to NPR, conditions are absolutely perfect for this slow moving giant storm, and it is going to take quite a few days for it to exit the region...

In this case, seas will be amped up by giant waves and full-moon-powered high tides. That will combine with drenching rains, triggering inland flooding as the hurricane merges with a winter storm system that will worsen it and hold it in place for days.

Louis Uccellini, environmental prediction chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press that given Sandy's due east-to-west track into New Jersey, that puts the worst of the storm surge just north in New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey. "Yes, this is the worst case scenario," he said.

Please do not underestimate this storm.  This is unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.

If you live in a part of the country that is being affected by this storm, please feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you are seeing in your area.  It is going to be a crazy couple of days.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-100-billion-storm-17-things-you-should-know-about-hurricane-sandy

CATO INSTITUTE HELPFULLY MAKES ITS FAKE CLIMATE REPORT LOOK LIKE ACTUAL GOVERNMENT CLIMATE REPORT, EXCEPT FAKE

Remember a few months ago when hilariously titled fake ripoffs of bestsellers were all over Amazon’s e-book store — 35 Shades of Grey, or I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that sort of thing? The playful jokesters of the Cato Institute are using their Koch Industries Megabux to top that! They will soon release a delightful “spoof” of a 2009 US Government report on climate change, except that where the real report looks at real science, the fake “Addendum” contains the reassuring news that climate change is no big deal, hooray!

The shrill Marxists at Scientific American have the story:

The addendum matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, “key message” sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes….

“It’s not an addendum. It’s a counterfeit,” said John Abraham, an associate professor at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota who studies clean power sources. “It’s a continued effort to kick the can down the road: A steady drip, drip, drip of fake reports by false scientists to create a false sense of debate.”

The 2009 report, available online, was prepared for Congress as “the most comprehensive and authoritative report of its kind” by scientists at the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and its findings are regularly updated by that group (spoiler alert: They have not decided they were wrong).

Cato claims its “Addendum” was driven by “the recognition that the original document was lacking in scope and relevant scientific detail.” For instance, the original report suggested that climate change was already having significant effects, and that we should maybe consider doing something about that, because c’mon, that can’t be right. And they’ve had a fair degree of success getting that message out, as PBS’s Frontline recently explored.

The unflattering imitations start right on the cover of the Cato version, which has the same font, color, and general design, including even a very scientific looking bar graph with global mean temperatures.

Of course, where the real report has a graph covering 108 years of data, showing a sharp rise over time, the Cato graph covers only the last 19 years, and reassuringly shows a random pattern, and not an upward trend. Stop worrying your little heads, you nervous nellies!

Climate Science Watch (the source of the illustration above, before our single improvement) details other subtle adjustments in the Cato presentation of climate science. Notably, not even the Cato Institute seems to feel it can get away with outright denial of global warming; now, it admits “Climate change is unequivocal and human activity plays some part in it,” so instead they mostly just downplay the extent and significance of climate change:

• Where the 2009 report says “Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years,” the Cato version says there were two periods of warming in the last century. One was absolutely not due to human activity, and OK, maybe the other “has characteristics that are consistent in part with a changed greenhouse effect.”
• Where the original says, “Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health,” the Cato version insists “There is no significant long-term change in US economic output that can be attributed to climate change.”
• The government scientists say that human health will be affected by “heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents,” while Cato’s relentless optimists are quite certain that “There is little relationship between life expectancy, wealth and climate. Even under the most dire scenarios, people will be much wealthier and healthier than they are today in the year 2100.”
• The capitalism-hating government report thinks compliance with the Kyoto treaty might slow or reduce global warming. The Libertarians at Cato are certain that cheating by China and India means that nothing the developed world does will have any global effect, so let’s not bother.

So, sure, maybe the Cato version deliberately apes the design, layout, and overall feel of a government report, but is anyone likely to be snowed by these deliberate similarities? One climate change denial blogger is quite certain that’s impossible, because if readers “can’t read ‘Cato Institute’ clearly printed on the front and back cover, then they probably aren’t capable of reading and interpreting the original report either.” We guess that settles it!

Scientific American also notes that this isn’t the first attempt by deniers to pass off fake science by making it look like the real thing. In 1998, a petition questioning the science underlying the Kyoto treaty “copied the format and style of a peer-reviewed article” in the very real Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 the Heartland Institute (recently notorious for those “Derp derp the Unabomber believed in global warming” murder billboards) published a fake-science report by the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC), a denialist group which just happens to sound a hell of a lot like the UN’s real science comittee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Considering how much wingnuts hate evolutionary theory, this is a remarkable use of the classic evolutionary strategy of adaptive mimicry.(Even creationist Ray Comfort has tried this, releasing an abridged editionof On the Origin of Species with a largely-plagiarized 50-page introduction explaining how evolution is fake.)

Rather than simply pointing out and correcting these shams, though, we think it might be more effective to just join in the fun. We look forward to advertising on conservative websites the newest release from Wonkette Books: Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, revised and extended by K. Marx and F. Engels.

http://wonkette.com/487796/cato-institute-helpfully-makes-its-fake-climate-report-look-like-actual-government-climate-report-except-fake

Why Does Organic Matter?

As if most consumers weren’t confused enough already about making the “right” food choices, the pseudo-scientific Stanford study released early last month had many of those on the fence thinking it was okay to once-again blindly trust what they found on their supermarket shelves. But, let’s lay this argument to rest (again) and talk about why organics really do matter.

What does organic really mean? Well, the USDA certifies foods that are organic when the growers, handlers, and producers use practices that adhere to their standards. These standards vary by food product and the USDA certifier must inspect the farm before a food can be labeled as organic. Generally, however, organic produce in particular is that which is produced “without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.” This immediately excludes genetically modified foods (GMOs).

So, what’s wrong with a few pesticides, a few lab-created organisms in our foods? Plenty.

A recent analysis (and not the only one) demonstrated that U.S. children have lost a combined total of 16 million I.Q. points due to pesticides in their food. While “pesticides make you stupid,” sounds like a silly argument for organics—it’s a legitimate one. Pesticides truly do lower the intelligence of children. These pesticides are absorbed when the child is in utero, through the mother. So, whether you are pregnant or hope one day to have children, cutting out pesticides now could save your child’s mind down the road.

One of the most prominently used herbicides, Monsanto’s Roundup, has been tied to numerous health problems including infertility, genetic damage, cancer, and plenty of other diseases and illnesses.

Finally, as if that isn’t enough, without organic certification, we can’t be sure the foods on U.S. supermarket shelves are free of GMOs. This is because the feds don’t think it’s in our best interest to know what we are eating. However, the issues related to GMO-consumption are coming to light—whether they like it or not.

Most recently, a French study has found rats who consume a lifelong diet of Roundup-ready GMO corn develop grotesque tumors which ultimately killed them. The rats consumed corn and Roundup-laced water at levels approved by the U.S. government. Around 50% of the males and 70% of the females died prematurely.

So, why does organic matter? It matters because unlike the federal government, we care about our health. We want to be informed and conscientious consumers. We want to support the farmers who are using good practices, and we’d like to give our children a healthy future. So, despite what the bought-and-paid-for Stanford scientists might say, we know differently. We know that organic products are better and we see through their shoddy attempt at convincing us otherwise.

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-does-organic-matter-1351431053

Who is Michael Taylor, really? Monsanto, the FDA and a history of evil

 "...[A]ll knowledgeable observers understand that technological advance and population aging are inexorable and costly and that sustained control of health care costs is possible only by denying some beneficial care to some people."

Who wrote that?

His name is Henry J. Aaron, and he wrote that in a Jan. 23, 2000, opinion piece for the Washington Post.

Aaron appears to be making the case that serious healthcare experts believe that rationing care to some Americans is the only way to save this nation's healthcare system.

This Brookings Institution scholar made a similar argument nine years later, in 2009, in a paper where he argued that it has become "necessary to develop protocols that enable providers to identify in advance patients in whom expected benefits of treatment are lower than costs [and] to design incentives that encourage providers to act on those protocols."

Why does his opinion matter?

Because in November 2011, President Barack Obama nominated him to be on the Social Security Advisory Board , a panel which, critics say, could serve in a rationing role under Obamacare regulations down the road by recommending cuts to Social Security benefits, as a way to control the budget.

In short, Obama has oft-denied critics' claims that his healthcare reform law would ever lead to rationing of care, but he nevertheless nominated someone who has argued for rationing his entire professional career to be on a panel that could play a role in that very thing.

Enter Michael Taylor. Who is he?

"The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar," writes foremost healthy food consumer advocate Jeffrey Smith over at the Huffington Post.

Here's his story.

Some time ago, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration were asked to give their feedback on what was to become "the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply," writes Smith - the introduction of genetically modified foods. Despite what consumers are told today by Big Agriculture and government agencies - that GM foods are safe and good for you - once-secret documents now indicate that the experts at FDA were extremely concerned.

In memo after memo, these experts "described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens," Smith said. They were unyielding in their belief that this radical technology carried "serious health hazards" and called for careful, lengthy research that would include human trials before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could safely be released into the food supply.

The fix was in; however, science - and scientists - would be discounted.

Healthcare problems grew after GM foods introduced

That's because the biotech industry pushing GMOs managed to have one of their own placed in a position of prominence within the FDA, "and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety," Smith wrote. Rather, "he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie."

Nearly 20 years ago, when the FDA was putting together GMO policy, agency scientists were certain that gene-sliced foods were greatly different, which could, in turn, lead to "different risks" than those posed by conventional foods.

Nevertheless, official FDA policy would declare exactly the opposite, claiming the agency "knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent," says Smith.

The fiction then became the narrative: GM foods would not only be permitted on the market, but they would be introduced with no required safety studies whatsoever. The determination that GM foods were safe was placed entirely in the hands of the biotech giants producing them - "companies like Monsanto, which told us that PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe," Smith wrote.

So by 1996, GM foods were showing up on plates in American homes. And over the next nine years, multiple, chronic illnesses in the U.S. nearly doubled, from seven percent to 13 percent, while allergy-related E.R. visits did actually double between 1997 and 2002. Food allergies, especially among kids, skyrocketed as well, Smith says, adding that the country "witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers."

Research and scientists catching on to dangers of GM foods

"In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases," said Smith.

Bhargava isn't alone. In May of this year, the Academy of Environmental Medicine also concluded that studies in animals have shown that there is at least a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, faster aging, poor insulin regulation, changes to major organs and the gastrointestinal system, immune problems (asthma, allergies and inflammation).

And in July, a report by eight renowned international experts concluded that weak, superficial evaluations of GMOs by regulators and biotech companies alike "systematically overlook the side effects" and greatly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."

"If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death," writes Smith, "then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history."

That person, he says, is Taylor.

Taylor needs to go

"He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA," Smith continues. "Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist."

Adds Marion Nestle at Food Politics, Taylor has been with "Monsanto, FDA, USDA, Monsanto, private sector, university, FDA" and is "a classic example of the 'revolving door.'"

In recent months, the outcry from both advocacy groups and a growing number of Americans for the government to require labeling of GM foods has grown to a fever pitch. In fact, an amendment in California, Proposition 37, would require just that - and Natural News' Health Ranger, Mike Adams, has come out in support of that requirement.

As far as Taylor, who is deputy commissioner of food at FDA, is concerned, there is a growing Internet petition effort to have him fired from the FDA for his role in circumventing the normative food testing and screening process, to have GM foods placed on the U.S. market.

One small step in the right direction.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037678_Michael_Taylor_Monsanto_FDA.html

New GM Crop Threatens Entire Existence of Organics

There’s a new genetically modified crop on the horizon that some say is jeopardizing the entire Canadian organic farming industry.

Organic farmers across the country are sounding the alarm bells on the state of alfalfa, one small plant with a massive role in organic farming.

When most people hear the word alfalfa they generally think of sprouts they buy in the grocery store.

However, full-grown, dried alfalfa is a high-protein feed for pigs, poultry, dairy cows, beef cattle and lambs and is used to increase the nutrients in soil.

In order to be certified organic, foods cannot be produced with genetically modified crops and chemical sprays.

The crop at the centre of this debate is Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant, genetically modified (GM) alfalfa. It has already been deregulated in the U.S. and north of the border seed growers and conventional farmers are meeting to discuss the possibility of commercializing GM alfalfa in Canada.

This November, the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA) is meeting with members of Forage Genetics International to discuss the status of herbicide tolerant alfalfa in the U.S. and Canada and develop a coexistence plan for GM alfalfa.

Critics argue that organic crops and GM crops cannot coexist, as cross-pollination of GM alfalfa to organic crops is inevitable – making organic certification impossible.

“The consensus among the food scientists is that once it’s out there, it will inevitably contaminate the entire seed supply,” said Ted Zettel, from the Canadian Organic Federation.

“I’m sure that I’ll lose my certification,” said organic dairy farmer John Brunsveld.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/new-gm-crop-threatens-entire-existence-of-organics/