Reasons to End Our War on Germs Before it Kills Us All

Western civilization guards its health as if constantly menaced by a giant public toilet handle. That's because we know how to read statistics, like we carry between two to 10 million bacteria from fingertip to elbow, or that germs can stay alive for up to three hours. As the Food and Drink Federation of Great Britain cheerfully points out [3], there can be as many germs under your ring as there are people in Europe.

We are a culture of germaphobes, spending [4] as much as $930 million on antibacterial chemicals and $2.4 billion on soap at the end of the last decade. But is it possible that our war against germs is doing more harm than good?

Antibacterial or antimicrobial products do have a place in our society: in hospitals, on the surgeon’s table, in your nurse’s hands. But stationed in our handbags, waiting to be daily lathered up at the first touch of a subway pole? Not so much. Studies show that some antimicrobial products not only contain potential hormonal disruptors, but they are enabling superbugs to breed beyond our ability to smite them. Here are five reasons you should trade in some of your antibacterial sprays, gels and liquid soaps for just plain old soap and water.

1. Triclosan. For more than 30 years, triclosan has been used in hand soaps, cosmetics, deodorants, toothpastes, clothes, detergents, and more. The Centers for Disease Control reports [5] that triclosan is found in the urine of nearly 75 percent of people tested. Otherstudies [6] have shown it to be in the breast milk and blood samples of the general population. It is marketed [6] under other names such as Microban, Irgasan DP-300, Lexol 300, Biofresh, Ster-Zac, Cloxifenolum, and more.

So now that we know we’re likely hosting triclosan like Times Square hosts tourists, let’s look at its safety. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently does not list triclosan as a hazardous ingredient; however, in light of several recent studies showing adverse effects in animal testing, the FDA is currently reviewing this position. Triclosan is shown [7] to alter hormone regulation in frogs, resulting in altered behavior and possible infertility. A recent study in 2012 revealed [8] that triclosan is “linked with muscle function impairments in humans and mice, as well as slowing the swimming of fish.”

Liquid soap manufacturers, which as the New York Times points out [9], represent half of the $750 million market for liquid hand soaps in the United States, continue to claim triclosan has no harmful effects on humans. But while companies such as Dial [10] keep using the questionable antimicrobial, others, such as Colgate-Palmolive, have started to replace tricolsan with different ingredients.

2. Natural selection. So imagine you’re slathering your hands with antibacterial soap. While most of the bacteria on your skin reacts like it's Armageddon, a few remain. These hardy bacteria—now resistant to your soap—adapt and mutate to successfully ward off your next sudsy assault on their existence. Microbiologists refer [11] to this process as “selection,” and several studies show [12] that it’s causing some bacteria to resist antibiotics.  

Then you get a bacterial infection, and your doctor prescribes antibiotics. As Discovery Health points out, “some antibacterial agents go after the same physiology of bacteria that prescription antibiotics do.” This means that if the bacteria making you sick already has a resistance to antibacterial agents because of previous exposure, it’s not going to work as well or at all. Think of it this way—do you really want superbugs playing out War of the Worlds in your body?

3. They are harming our ecosystem. The Natural Resources Defense Council shares [7] that triclosan and its close cousin triclocarban “are found in high concentrations in sediments and sewage sludge where they can persist for decades.” Further, triclosan is one of the most frequently detected chemicals found in U.S. streams. The hormonal disruptions it enables are thought to be damaging the reproductive health of certain fish. Meanwhile, some experts [13] are concerned about the additional exposure to humans eating contaminated fish.

4. They are making us sick. It turns out our war on germs is having an ironic side effect—in some cases, it’s actually making us sick. Because our bodies no longer need to fight germs like they did in bubonic times, studies show that some children are developing allergies. Apparently, allowing our bodies to rarely detect germs has made them more sensitive to everyday substances, like pollen and dust.

Marc McMorris is a pediatric allergist at the University of Michigan Health System. As he told [14] LiveScience, “As a result, the immune system has shifted away from fighting infection to developing more allergic tendencies.” Studies show that allergy rates in Americans from 1988 to 1994 are two to five times higher that rates from 1976 to 1980.  

5. Soap and water works just as well. Why do colds, viruses and plagues spread in the first place? As much as we’d like to blame[15] it on Gwyneth Paltrow shaking hands with a Chinese chef and then cheating on Matt Damon (as took place in the film Contagion), it’s largely because we of the so-called civilized world don’t like to wash our hands. In fact, as many as half of all men and a quarter of women fail to wash their hands [3] after they have been to the bathroom.

As it turns out, what we learned in kindergarten is true—the CDC urges [16] us to wash our hands with soap and water to prevent the spread of germs. But we do not need said soap to contain antibacterial agents. The FDA shares [17] that it has no evidence that antibacterial soaps containing triclosan provide any extra health benefits.

So What Should We Use?

Luckily, there are many products out there which do not have worrisome studies attached to their ingredients lists. Plain soap and water are your best friends in the fight against colds and flu. Start reading ingredient labels, weeding out anything with triclosan and triclocarban. If you need to wash your hands and nary a sink or soap dish is to be found, use antibacterial gels that contain alcohol as the primary germ-fighting ingredient. According to the CDC [16], they should work well if they contain at least 60% alcohol and your hands are not visibly dirty.

And if you really want to go natural (and have some extra dollars to spend), consider a line of clean (so to speak) soaps. Tracy Perkins, creator of the handmade soap company Strawberry Hedgehog [18], uses essential oils in her line. As she tells AlterNet, “essential oils derived directly from plants are powerfully antibacterial on their own, and used in appropriate dilution they are much gentler than the harsh antibacterial detergents available on the market.” 

So the next time you find yourself reaching for your antibacterial spray, ask yourself “to triclosan or not to triclosan?” And then wash the heck out of your hands with simple soap and water.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/5-reasons-end-our-war-germs-it-kills-us-all

FDA Censors Academic Freedom at UC Davis Regarding Raw Milk Benefits?

Okay class, pay attention.

Today’s subject of discussion: academic freedom.

Enough with the groans, everyone. I know it’s not the sexiest topic when it comes to food issues, but you may change your attitude when you hear the story I’m about to tell you.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about what I thought was a well balanced scientific assessment, by a prominent
international science writer, of several large-scale research studies out of Europe about the potential health benefits of raw milk (with the unsexy title, “The evidence around raw milk”). It was published in SPLASH, the newsletter of the International Milk Genomics Consortium (IMGC), which is housed at the University of California, Davis.

The IMGC has been doing research for years on the benefits of mother’s milk, and obtains financial support from the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF), a nonprofit arm of the state’s conventional milk industry.

The IMGC has begun extending its research in recent years to cow’s milk. Potentially dangerous territory, as we all know, since those who regulate milk in the U.S. think everything that needs to be known about milk is  known, as in pasteurized milk is wonderful and unpasteurized milk is deadly dangerous.

But the newsletter article from the IMGC didn’t reinforce that view. Yes, it summarized statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control about the dangers of raw milk (“The CDC estimates the risk of a glass of raw milk causing a disease outbreak is at least 150 times that of a glass of pasteurized milk,” it said at the very outset.)

But after summarizing the CDC data, it explained potentially positive implications of major research studies out of Europe on raw milk. “The data suggest that raw milk can cause both trouble and advantage to a human body…To be sure, heating milk to 72°C for 15 seconds reduces the odds of a bad belly, but does it also destroy complex proteins and other components that could bolster human health? Apparently so.”

Then, it poured gasoline on the flame it had ignited, by saying that  “there is strong evidence that (raw milk) benefits young children…” And, turning a roaring fire into an inferno, it added that “the world needs studies testing whether large numbers of grown-ups suffering from asthma, hay fever, and similar medical problems see their allergies dampen down after drinking raw milk for a prolonged period.”

In retrospect, such statements were akin to standing on street corners in 1491 and shouting out that the world was round. My post went up Oct. 2, presumably a day or two after the October issue of SPLASH went up, with three articles. By last Friday, only two of the articles were still available to all visitors.  “The evidence around raw milk” had disappeared.

The one- paragraph intro to the third article, “The evidence around raw milk”, was there as well, but when you click to read more, you are taken to a page asking for your log-in info. So I registered, figuring I could access the article that way. When I received a link to get a password, and got onto the site and tried to call up the article in question, it said “Insufficient Privileges.” The article had been pulled. And off to the left column of the page, where it showed who had been on the page before I got there, the most recent name was that of John F. Sheehan, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Director of Plant and Dairy Food Safety. (Damn, the evidence the Internet sometimes leaves behind!)

So what exactly  happened to the raw milk article? The word I have on pretty good sources (I don’t  want  to identify them because this stuff is so sensitive that jobs and  careers could be placed  at risk) is that someone from the FDA (Sheehan?) contacted the CDRF and demanded that the SPLASH raw milk article be removed. I’ll make an educated guess that the FDA was upset because the SPLASH article asserted that the European research indicates pasteurization may “destroy complex proteins and other components that could bolster human health.”

I make that guess because Sheehan testified on just this subject before the Maine legislature in 2011, in connection with a (successful) effort by the FDA to block legislation that would have made it easier for small dairies to sell raw milk directly to customers.

He argued in his testimony that the European research on the role of proteins in conferring health benefits, and  their sensitivity to pasteurization couldn’t have been correct. “Pasteurization does not destroy milk proteins,” he claimed. “Caseins, the major family of milk proteins, are largely unaffected by pasteurization. Any changes which might occur with whey proteins are barely perceptible.”

Back to our lesson on academic freedom. The FDA obviously has a different view of “truth” than the European researchers. And certainly, the issue hasn’t been resolved. It requires further research and analysis. That is what academic freedom is all about–analyzing, researching, debating, discussing.

The view underlying academic freedom is that no one holds a monopoly on truth. It explains why professors get tenure–so they will feel free to express their views on scientific (or other research) despite the political pressures of the day. Censoring scientific papers is a big no-no within the tradition of academic freedom.

I have no way of knowing whether anyone  at UC Davis or CDRF protested to  the FDA that pulling the raw milk article was  a serious infringement  on academic freedom. But I  can guess at  what  the FDA  reaction would  have been–something like if you were to tell an underworld enforcer trying  to sell you “protection”  that  such  practices  are  against  the  law. A laugh, and then a question: “Who you gonna complain to?”

But perhaps the FDA should be looking over its shoulder, and asking a different question: How long can it keep  its finger in the dike and preventing the Truth from asserting itself?

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/fda-censors-academic-freedom-at-uc-davis-regarding-raw-milk-benefits/

Earthquake-Causing Fracking to Be Allowed within 500 Feet of Nuclear Plants

The American government has officially stated that fracking can cause earthquakes. Some fracking companies now admit this fact The scientific community agrees. See this, this, this, this and this.

Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants. For example, even the operator of Fukushima and the Japanese government now admit that the nuclear cores might have started melting down before the tsuanmi ever hit. More here.

Indeed, the fuel pools and rods at Fukushima appear to have “boiled”, caught fire and/or exploded soon after the earthquake knocked out power systems. See this, this, this, this and this. And fuel pools in the United States store an average of ten times more radioactive fuel than stored at Fukushima, have virtually no safety features, and are vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks. And see this.

Indeed, American reactors may be even more vulnerable to earthquakes than Fukushima.

But American nuclear “regulators” have allowed numerous nuclear power plants to be built in earthquake zones:

Some plants are located in very high earthquake risk zones:

And they have covered up the risks from earthquakes for years … just like the Japanese regulators did. For example:

• The NRC won’t even begin conducting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing is complete in 2013, because the NRC doesn’t consider a big earthquake “a serious risk”

• Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)

• We have 4 reactors in California – 2 at San Onofre 2 at San Luis Obisbo – which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis

For example, Diablo Canyon is located on numerous earthquake faults, and a state legislator and seismic expert says it could turn into California’s Fukushima:

On July 26th 2011 the California Energy Commission held hearings concerning the state’s nuclear safety. During those hearings, the Chairman of the Commission asked governments experts whether or not they felt the facilities could withstand the maximum credible quake. The response was that they did not know.This is similar to what happened at Fukushima: seismologists dire warnings were ignored (and see this.)

Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t even take earthquake risk into account when deciding whether or not to relicense plants like Diablo Canyon.

Are They Fracking With Us?

American nuclear regulators are allowing earthquake-inducing fracking to be conducted mere feet from nuclear power plants.

As the Herald Standard reports:

Chesapeake Energy has a permit to frack just one mile from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport. Whether that is cause for alarm, experts can’t say.

***

“Hydraulic fracturing near a nuclear plant is probably not a concern under normal circumstances,” [Richard Hammack, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory] said. “If there is a pre-stress fault that you happen to lubricate there (with fracking solution), that is the only thing that might result in something that is (seismically) measurable.”

That’s not very reassuring, given that “lubrication” of faults is the main mechanism by which fracking causes earthquakes. (Indeed,  the point is illustrated by the analogous fact that leading Japanese seismologists say that the Fukushima earthquake “lubricated” nearby faults, making a giant earthquake more likely than ever.)

And as Akron Beacon Journal notes, fracking is allowed with 500 feet of nuclear plants:

“We’re not aware of any potential impacts and don’t expect any,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young today. “We see no reason to be particularly concerned.”

***

[But] experts can’t say if the proposed well so close to two nuclear power plants is cause for concern.

***

DEP spokesperson John Poister told the Shale Reporter that there are no required setbacks specifically relating to a required distance between such shale wells and nuclear facilities, just a blanket regulation requiring a 500-foot setback from any building to a natural gas well.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/earthquake-causing-fracking-to-be-allowed-within-500-feet-of-nuclear-plants/5309229

Will We Let Industrial Farming Interests Set Us Up for Long-Run Mass Starvation?

As we reported in April ^[2], Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued an Invasive Species Order, or ISO, that was supposed to “help stop the spread of feral swine and the disease risk they pose,” not to mention their “potential for extensive agricultural and ecosystem damage.”

Quite intentionally, we believe, the ISO’s unnecessarily broad definition includes heritage or “old world” breeds and open-range pigs raised on small family farms. These are included because they do not have the uniform color and appearance of factory-raised pigs.

The order allows DNR to seize and destroy non-conforming animals—some farmers’ principal livelihood and what remains of porcine genetic diversity—and will not compensate farmers whose pigs are destroyed ^[3]. Even pet pigs could be in danger.

Many observers believe that the Michigan Pork Producers Association is behind the order. The MPPA is a coalition of CAFOs or factory farming operations that would view the small pig farmers as undesirable competition. The ISO eliminates this competition and ensures that consumers have no choice but to purchase white pork from the confinement facilities, which are exempt from the ISO.

In addition, the order is also described by some farmers as “a brazen power grab” by the Michigan DNR to expand its jurisdiction beyond hunting and fishing to now include farming operations.

Since our earlier report, four lawsuits ^[4] have been filed by small farmers against the DNR to overturn the ISO on the grounds that it is vague and contradictory. Two of the plaintiffs are heritage breed farmers who actually received an order for them to “depopulate.”

To say that the order is vague and contradictory is an understatement. We doubt that whoever wrote it ever saw a pig. One of the defining characteristics of a feral swine in the ISO is tail structure: “Sus scrofa exhibit straight tails. They contain the muscular structure to curl their tails if needed, but the tails are typically held straight. Hybrids of Sus scrofa exhibit either curly or straight tail structure.” So in plain English, a pig with either a straight tail or curly tail is either a feral or a non-feral swine! If it is the wrong one, eliminate it!

The lawsuits were consolidated into a single hearing to determine whether the ISO—and DNR’s Declaratory Ruling interpreting the ISO^[5]—could be voided. A ruling is expected next month.

At the same time, there is a campaign to petition the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, to rescind the ISO. If the governor lets it stand, other states will take note, and we may get the same sort of order from other state agencies. The ISO is not only bad for Michigan local farmers. It would also leave us with only one kind of pig by destroying the genetic diversity of pig genes presently available.

If humanity goes down the road it seems to be on and discards its heritage seeds and animals so that powerful corporate interests, assisted by friends in government, can control our food supply, we shouldn’t be surprised if the eventual result is mass starvation.

If we stop this outrageous order in Michigan, we won’t just have stopped it there. We will have prevented its spread to other states.

Action Alert! If you’re a Michigan resident, please write to Gov. Snyder and ask him to rescind the ISO. Besides being terribly unfair to small farmers, heritage and “old world” breeds of pigs are important to provide genetic variety to an increasingly limited gene pool.

Fracking Poisoning Families at Alarming Rate: Report

Residents living near gas fracking sites suffer an increasingly high rate of health problems now linked to pollutants used in the gas extraction process, according to a new report released Thursday.

The study, conducted by Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project, pulled from a survey of 108 Pennsylvania residents in 14 counties, and a series of air and water tests. The results showed close to 70 percent of participants reported an increase in throat irritation and roughly 80 percent suffered from sinus problems after natural gas extraction companies moved to their areas. The symptoms intensify the closer the residents are to the fracking sites.

"We use water for nothing other than flushing the commode," said Janet McIntyre referring to the now toxic levels of water on her land, which neighbors a fracking site. McIntyre said her entire family, including their pets, suffered from a wide array of health problems including projectile vomiting and skin rashes, indicative of other families' symptoms in the areas surveyed. Other symptoms include sinus, respiratory, fatigue, and mood problems.

"Twenty-two households reported that pets and livestock began to have symptoms (such as seizures or losing hair) or suddenly fell ill and died after gas development began nearby,” the report finds.

After taking water and air samples, Earthworks detected chemicals that have been linked to oil and gas operations and also directly connected to many of the symptoms reported in the survey on the resident's properties. This study showed a higher concentration of ethylbenzene and xylene, volatile compounds found in petroleum hydrocarbons, at the households as compared to control sites.

“For too long, the oil and gas industry and state regulators have dismissed community members’ health complaints as ‘false’ or ‘anecdotal’,” said Nadia Steinzor, the project’s lead author. “With this research, they cannot credibly ignore communities any longer.”

According to a separate report released earlier this month, EPA regulators are having trouble keeping up with the "rapid pace" of shale oil and gas development, due to a lack in resources, staff, data and a number of legal loopholes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/19-2

Daily Vibration May Combat Prediabetes in Youth

Daily sessions of whole-body vibration may combat prediabetes in adolescents, dramatically reducing inflammation, average blood glucose levels and symptoms such as frequent urination, researchers report.

In mice that mimic over-eating adolescents headed toward diabetes, 20 minutes of daily vibration for eight weeks restored a healthy balance of key pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators and was better than prescription drugs at reducing levels of hemoglobin A1c, the most accurate indicator of average blood glucose levels, said Dr. Jack C. Yu, Chief of the Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

In normal mice, just four days of vibration also dramatically improved the ability to manage a huge glucose surge similar to that following a high-calorie, high-fat meal. "It's a very good sign," said Yu. "If you eat a pound of sugar, your blood glucose will go up. If you are prediabetic, it will go up even more and take longer to come down."

Interestingly, vibration did not produce similar changes in older, normal mice, Yu told researchers at the Third World Congress of Plastic Surgeons of Chinese Descent.

"This is our model: the average American teenager who eats too much," said Yu, who regularly operates on obese and often prediabetic adolescent males who want their abnormally large breasts reduced. "The only way to burn fat is to exercise. We shake the bone for you rather than the body's muscle shaking it. This is a highly efficient way to fool the bone into thinking we are exercising."

It's also one way to deal with the reality that many individuals simply will not exercise regularly, he said.

Yu, also a craniofacial surgeon who studies bone formation, said while it's unclear exactly how vibration produces these desirable results, it seems linked to the impact of movement on bone health. Vibration mimics the motion bones experience during exercise when muscles are doing the work. The slight bending and unbending of bone triggers remodeling so it can stay strong. One result is production of osteocalcin, a protein essential to bone building, which also signals the pancreas to get ready for food. While this prehistoric relationship is tied to the hunt for food, it doesn't work so well in 21^stcentury living where folks are moving too little and eating too much, Yu said. The constant demand can produce resistance to the insulin required to use glucose as energy.

Additionally, the body tends to hold onto fat for energy and survival, which researchers think is key to the chronic inflammation found in obesity-related type 2 diabetes. The fat itself produces inflammatory factors; the immune system also can misidentify fat as an infection, resulting in even more inflammation but, unfortunately, not eliminating the fat.

The bottom line is an unbalanced immune response: too many aggressors like the immune system SWAT team member Th17 and too few calming regulating factors like FoxP3. Researchers looked in the mouse blood and found vibration produced a 125-fold increase in immune system homeostasis and similar results in the kidney. This included positive movement in other players as well, such as a five-fold reduction in what Yu calls the "nuclear fuel," gammaH2AX, an indicator that something is attacking the body's DNA.

The animal model researchers used has a defect in the receptor for leptin, the satiety hormone, so the mice uncharacteristically overeat. Vibration also significantly reduced the mouse's diabetic symptoms of excessive thirst and diluted urine, resulting from excessive urination. The mice also seemed to like it, Yu said.

Next steps include learning more about how vibration produces such desirable results and large-scale clinical studies to see if they hold true in adolescents.

Prediabetics can avoid type 2 diabetes by making healthy diet changes and increasing physical activity, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Vibration technology was originally developed by the former Soviet Union to try to prevent muscle and bone wasting in cosmonauts. MCG researchers reported in the journal Bone in 2010 that daily whole body vibration may help minimize age-related bone density loss.

Yu and Biomedical Engineer Karl H. Wenger developed the whole-body vibrator used for the animal studies. Study coauthors include Wenger as well as GHSU's Drs. Babak Baban, Sun Hsieh, Mahmood Mozaffari and Mohamad Masoumy.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121019141258.htm

Mobile phones can cause brain tumours, court rules.

A landmark court case has ruled there is a link between using a mobile phone and brain tumours, paving the way for a flood of legal actions.

By Richard Alleyne

The Telegraph UK, 19 Oct 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9619514/Mobile-phones-can-cause-brain-tumours-court-rules..html

Innocente Marcolini, 60, an Italian businessman, fell ill after using a handset at work for up to six hours every day for 12 years.

Now Italy's Supreme Court in Rome has blamed his phone saying there is a "causal link" between his illness and phone use, the Sun has reported.

Mr Marcolini said: "This is significant for very many people. I wanted this problem to become public because many people still do not know the risks.

"I was on the phone, usually the mobile, for at least five or six hours every day at work.

"I wanted it recognised that there was a link between my illness and the use of mobile and cordless phones.

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"Parents need to know their children are at risk of this illness."

British scientists have claimed there is insufficient evidence to prove any link to mobiles.

But the respected oncologist and professor of environmental mutagenesis Angelo Gino Levis gave evidence for Mr Marcolini — along with neurosurgeon Dr Giuseppe Grasso.

They said electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile and cordless phones can damage cells, making tumours more likely.

Prof Levis told The Sun: "The court decision is extremely important. It finally officially recognises the link.

"It'll open not a road but a motorway to legal actions by victims. We're considering a class action."

Mr Marcolini's tumour was discovered in the trigeminal nerve — close to where the phone touched his head.

It is non-cancerous but threatened to kill him as it spread to the carotid artery, the major vessel carrying blood to his brain.

His face was left paralysed and he takes daily morphine for pain.

Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch, which campaigns for more research on mobile use, said: "This is an interesting case and proves the need for more studies.

"People should limit mobile and cordless use until we know more."

The World Health Organisation urged limits on mobile use last year, calling them a Class B carcinogen.

But a spokesman for Britain's Health Protection Agency said: "The scientific consensus is that mobile phones do not cause cancer."

International radiation biology expert Michael Repacholi said: "Studies show no evidence of cancer. But if you are worried, use a headset, hands-free or loudspeaker."

Media lawyer Mark Stephens said the verdict could "open the floodgates" — even though there is no direct obligation on British courts to follow the Italians' lead.

He said: "It is possible people will begin legal action here, but I think the chances of success are less. I think they'll join any class action in Italy."

Scientists Surprised To Find Significant Adverse Effects Of CO2 On Human Decision-Making Performance

Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found that moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) can significantly impair people's decision-making performance. The results were unexpected and may have particular implications for schools and other spaces with high occupant density. 

"In our field we have always had a dogma that CO2 itself, at the levels we find in buildings, is just not important and doesn't have any direct impacts on people," said Berkeley Lab scientist William Fisk, a co-author of the study, which was published in Environmental Health Perspectives online last month. "So these results, which were quite unambiguous, were surprising." The study was conducted with researchers from State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. 

On nine scales of decision-making performance, test subjects showed significant reductions on six of the scales at CO2 levels of 1,000 parts per million (ppm) and large reductions on seven of the scales at 2,500 ppm. The most dramatic declines in performance, in which subjects were rated as "dysfunctional," were for taking initiative and thinking strategically. "Previous studies have looked at 10,000 ppm, 20,000 ppm; that's the level at which scientists thought effects started," said Berkeley Lab scientist Mark Mendell, also a co-author of the study. "That's why these findings are so startling." 

While the results need to be replicated in a larger study, they point to possible economic consequences of pursuing energy efficient buildings without regard to occupants. "As there's a drive for increasing energy efficiency, there's a push for making buildings tighter and less expensive to run," said Mendell. "There's some risk that, in that process, adverse effects on occupants will be ignored. One way to make sure occupants get the attention they deserve is to point out adverse economic impacts of poor indoor air quality. If people can't think or perform as well, that could obviously have adverse economic impacts." 

The primary source of indoor CO2 is humans. While typical outdoor concentrations are around 380 ppm, indoor concentrations can go up to several thousand ppm. Higher indoor CO2 concentrations relative to outdoors are due to low rates of ventilation, which are often driven by the need to reduce energy consumption. In the real world, CO2 concentrations in office buildings normally don't exceed 1,000 ppm, except in meeting rooms, when groups of people gather for extended periods of time. 

In classrooms, concentrations frequently exceed 1,000 ppm and occasionally exceed 3,000 ppm. CO2 at these levels has been assumed to indicate poor ventilation, with increased exposure to other indoor pollutants of potential concern, but the CO2 itself at these levels has not been a source of concern. Federal guidelines set a maximum occupational exposure limit at 5,000 ppm as a time-weighted average for an eight-hour workday. 

Fisk decided to test the conventional wisdom on indoor CO2 after coming across two small Hungarian studies reporting that exposures between 2,000 and 5,000 ppm may have adverse impacts on some human activities. 

Fisk, Mendell, and their colleagues, including Usha Satish at SUNY Upstate Medical University, assessed CO2 exposure at three concentrations: 600, 1,000 and 2,500 ppm. They recruited 24 participants, mostly college students, who were studied in groups of four in a small office-like chamber for 2.5 hours for each of the three conditions. Ultrapure CO2 was injected into the air supply and mixing was ensured, while all other factors, such as temperature, humidity, and ventilation rate, were kept constant. The sessions for each person took place on a single day, with one-hour breaks between sessions. 

Although the sample size was small, the results were unmistakable. "The stronger the effect you have, the fewer subjects you need to see it," Fisk said. "Our effect was so big, even with a small number of people, it was a very clear effect." 

Another novel aspect of this study was the test used to assess decision-making performance, the Strategic Management Simulation (SMS) test, developed by SUNY. In most studies of how indoor air quality affects people, test subjects are given simple tasks to perform, such as adding a column of numbers or proofreading text. "It's hard to know how those indicators translate in the real world," said Fisk. "The SMS measures a higher level of cognitive performance, so I wanted to get that into our field of research." 

The SMS has been used most commonly to assess effects on cognitive function, such as by drugs, pharmaceuticals or brain injury, and as a training tool for executives. The test gives scenarios - for example, you're the manager of an organization when a crisis hits, what do you do? - and scores participants in nine areas. "It looks at a number of dimensions, such as how proactive you are, how focused you are, or how you search for and use information," said Fisk. "The test has been validated through other means, and they've shown that for executives it is predictive of future income and job level." 

Data from elementary school classrooms has found CO2 concentrations frequently near or above the levels in the Berkeley Lab study. Although their study tested only decision making and not learning, Fisk and Mendell say it is possible that students could be disadvantaged in poorly ventilated classrooms, or in rooms in which a large number of people are gathered to take a test. "We cannot rule out impacts on learning," their report says. 

The next step for the Berkeley Lab researchers is to reproduce and expand upon their findings. "Our first goal is to replicate this study because it's so important and would have such large implications," said Fisk. "We need a larger sample and additional tests of human work performance. We also want to include an expert who can assess what's going on physiologically." 

Until then, they say it's too early to make any recommendations for office workers or building managers. "Assuming it's replicated, it has implications for the standards we set for minimum ventilation rates for buildings," Fisk said. "People who are employers who want to get the most of their workforce would want to pay attention to this."

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "Scientists Surprised To Find Significant Adverse Effects Of CO2 On Human Decision-Making Performance."Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 20 Oct. 2012. Web.
21 Oct. 2012.

NRC Whistleblowers: Risk of Nuclear Melt-Down In U.S. Is Even HIGHER Than It Was at Fukushima

Massive Cover-Up of Risks from Flooding to Numerous U.S. Nuclear Facilities

Numerous American nuclear reactors are built within flood zones:

As one example, on the following map (showing U.S. nuclear power plants built within earthquake zones), the red lines indicate the Mississippi and Missouri rivers:

Numerous dam failures have occurred within the U.S.:

Reactors in Nebraska and elsewhere were flooded by swollen rivers and almost melted down.  See this,this, this and this.

The Huntsville Times wrote in an editorial last year:

A tornado or a ravaging flood could just as easily be like the tsunami that unleashed the final blow [at Fukushima as an earthquake].

An engineer with the NRC says that a reactor meltdown is an “absolute certainty” if a dam upstream of a nuclear plant fails … and that such a scenario is hundreds of times more likely than the tsunami that hit Fukushima :

An engineer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) … Richard Perkins, an NRC reliability and risk engineer, was the lead author on a July 2011 NRC report detailing flood preparedness. He said the NRC blocked information from the public regarding the potential for upstream dam failures to damage nuclear sites.

Perkins, in a letter submitted Friday with the NRC Office of Inspector General, said that the NRC “intentionally mischaracterized relevant and noteworthy safety information as sensitive, security information in an effort to conceal the information from the public.”The Huffington Post first obtained the letter.

***

The report in question was completed four months after … Fukushima.

The report concluded that, “Failure of one or more dams upstream from a nuclear power plant may result in flood levels at a site that render essential safety systems inoperable.”

Huffington Post reported last month:

These charges were echoed in separate conversations with another risk engineer inside the agencywho suggested that the vulnerability at one plant in particular — the three-reactor Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, S.C. — put it at risk of a flood and subsequent systems failure, should an upstream dam completely fail, that would be similar to the tsunami that hobbled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan last year.***

The engineer is among several nuclear experts who remain particularly concerned about the Oconee plant in South Carolina, which sits on Lake Keowee, 11 miles downstream from the Jocassee Reservoir. Among the redacted findings in the July 2011 report — and what has been known at the NRC for years, the engineer said — is that the Oconee facility, which is operated by Duke Energy, would suffer almost certain core damage if the Jocassee dam were to fail. And the odds of it failing sometime over the next 20 years, the engineer said, are far greater than the odds of a freak tsunami taking out the defenses of a nuclear plant in Japan.

“The probability of Jocassee Dam catastrophically failing is hundreds of timesgreater than a 51 foot wall of water hitting Fukushima Daiichi,” the engineer said. “And, like the tsunami in Japan, the man‐made ‘tsunami’ resulting from the failure of the Jocassee Dam will –- with absolute certainty –- result in the failure of three reactor plants along with their containment structures.

“Although it is not a given that Jocassee Dam will fail in the next 20 years,” the engineer added, “it is a given that if it does fail, the three reactor plants will melt down and release their radionuclides into the environment.”

***

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, Richard H. Perkins, a reliability and risk engineer with the agency’s division of risk analysis, alleged that NRC officials falsely invoked security concerns in redacting large portions of a report detailing the agency’s preliminary investigation into the potential for dangerous and damaging flooding at U.S. nuclear power plants due to upstream dam failure.

Perkins, along with at least one other employee inside NRC, also an engineer, suggested that the real motive for redacting certain information was to prevent the public from learning the full extent of these vulnerabilities, and to obscure just how much the NRC has known about the problem, and for how long.

Huffington Post notes today:

An un-redacted version of a recently released Nuclear Regulatory Commission report highlights the threat that flooding poses to nuclear power plants located near large dams — and suggests that the NRC has misled the public for years about the severity of the threat, according to engineers and nuclear safety advocates.

“The redacted information shows that the NRC is lying to the American public about the safety of U.S. reactors,” said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and safety advocate with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

***

According to the NRC’s own calculations, which were also withheld in the version of the report released in March, the odds of the dam near the Oconee plant failing at some point over the next 22 years are far higher than were the odds of an earthquake-induced tsunami causing a meltdown at the Fukushima plant.

The NRC report identifies flood threats from upstream dams at nearly three dozen other nuclear facilities in the United States, including the Fort Calhoun Station in Nebraska, the Prairie Island facility in Minnesota and the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, among others.

***

Larry Criscione, a risk engineer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who is one of two NRC employees who have now publicly raised questions about both the flood risk at Oconee and the agency’s withholding of related information, said assertions that the plant is “currently able to mitigate flooding events,” amounted to double-speak.

Criscione said this is because current regulations don’t include the failure of the Jocassee Dam — 11 miles upriver from Oconee — in the universe of potential flooding events that might threaten the plant. “I think they’re being dishonest,” Criscione said in a telephone interview. “I think that we currently intend to have Duke Energy improve their flooding protection and to say that the current standard is adequate is incorrect.”

According to the leaked report, NRC stated unequivocally in a 2009 letter to Duke that it believed that “a Jocassee Dam failure is a credible event” and that Duke had “not demonstrated that the Oconee Nuclear Station units will be adequately protected.” These statements — along with Duke’s own flood timeline associated with a Jocassee Dam failure and NRC’s calculated odds of such a failure — were among many details that were blacked out of the earlier, publicly released report.

***

Richard H. Perkins, a risk engineer with the NRC and the lead author of the leaked report, pointed to the analysis by the Association of Dam Safety Officials in an email message to The Huffington Post. “I felt it made a significant point that large, fatal, dam failures occur from time to time,” he said. “They are generally unexpected and they can kill lots of people. It’s not credible to say ‘dam failures are not credible.’”

Dave Lochbaum, the Union of Concerned Scientists engineer who reviewed a copy of the un-redacted report, says these revelations directly contradict the NRC’s assertions that Oconee is currently safe. “Fukushima operated just under 40 years before their luck ran out,” Lochbaum, who worked briefly for the NRC himself between 2009 and 2010, and who now heads the Nuclear Safety Project at UCS, said in a phone call. “If it ever does occur here, the consequences would be very, very high.

“Japan is now building higher sea walls at other plants along its coasts. That’s great for those plants, but it’s too late for Fukushima. If in hindsight you think you should have put the wall in,” Lochbaum said, “then in foresight you should do it now.”

Other Comparisons Between Dangers In U.S. and Fukushima

There are,  in fact, numerous parallels between Fukushima and vulnerable U.S. plants.

A Japanese government commission found that the Fukushima accident occurred because Tepco and the Japanese government were negligent, corrupt and in collusion. See this, this and this.  The U.S. NRC is similarly corrupt.

The operator of the Fukushima complex admitted earlier this month that it knew of the extreme vulnerability of its plants, but:

If the company were to implement a severe-accident response plan, it would spur anxiety throughout the country and in the community where the plant is sited, and lend momentum to the antinuclear movement ….

The U.S. has 23 reactors which are virtually identical to Fukushima.

Most American nuclear reactors are old.  They are aging poorly, and are in very real danger of melting down.

And yet the NRC is relaxing safety standards at the old plants. Indeed, while many of the plants are already past the service life that the engineers built them for, the NRC is considering extending licenses another 80 years, which former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and now senior adviser with Friends of the Earth’s nuclear campaign David Freeman calls “committing suicide”:

You’re not just rolling the dice, you’re practically committing suicide … everyone living within a 50 mile radius is a guinea pig.

Indeed, the Fukushima reactors were damaged by earthquake even before the tsunami hit (confirmedhere). And the American reactors may be even more vulnerable to earthquakes than Fukushima.

Moreover, the top threat from Fukushima are the spent fuel pools. And American nuclear plants have fuel pool problems which could dwarf the problems at Fukushima.

And neither government is spending the small amounts it would take to harden their reactors against a power outage.

The parallels run even deeper.   Specifically, the American government has largely been responsible for Japan’s nuclear policy for decades. And U.S. officials are apparently a primary reason behind Japan’s cover-up of the severity of the Fukushima accident … to prevent Americans from questioningour similarly-vulnerable reactors.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/nrc-whistleblowers-higher-risk-of-nuclear-melt-down-in-u-s-than-fukushima.html

How Kids Are Getting Hooked on Pills for Life

Where do parents and teachers get the idea there's something wrong with kids that only an expensive drug can fix? From Big Pharma's seamless web of ads, subsidized doctors, journals, medical courses and conferences, paid "patient" groups, phony public services messages and reporters willing to serve as stenographers.

Free stenography for Pharma from sympathetic media includes articles like "One in 40 Infants Experience Baby Blues, Doctors Say," on ABC News [4] and "Preschool Depression: The Importance of Early Detection of Depression in Young Children," on Science Daily [5].

For many, the face of the drugs-not-hugs message is Harold Koplewicz, author of the pop bestseller It's Nobody's Fault, and former head of NYU's prestigious Child Study Center. In a 1999 Salon [6] article, Koplewicz reiterated his "no-fault" statement, assuring parents that psychiatric illness is not caused by bad parenting. "It is not that your mother got divorced, or that your father didn't wipe you the right way," he said. "It really is DNA roulette: You got blue eyes, blond hair, sometimes a musical ear, but sometimes you get the predisposition for depression."

Many regard the NYU Child Study Center, which Koplewicz founded and led before leaving in 2009 to start his own facility, as helping to usher in the world of brave new pediatric medicine in which children, toddlers and infants, once expected to outgrow their problems, are now diagnosed with lifelong psychiatric problems. The Child Study Center is “a threat to the health and welfare of children,” and its doctors are “hustlers working to increase their 'client' population and their commercial value to psychotropic drug manufacturers,” charged Vera Sharav [7], president of the watchdog group, Alliance for Human Research Protection.

A look at the center's stated mission [8] provides no reassurance. Its goal of "eliminating the stigma of being or having a child with a psychiatric disorder," and "influencing child-related public policy," sounds a lot like a Pharma sales plan. And its boast about having "a structure that allows recruitment of patients for research studies and then provides 'real-world' testing for successful controlled-environment findings," could send chills down the backs of parents afraid their kids will be guinea pigs or money-making subjects.

In 2007, the fears of the Child Study Center's skeptics were confirmed when it launched an aggressive, scare tactic marketing campaign called Ransom Notes in 2007. "We have your son," said one ad, [9] created with bits of disparate type like a ransom note from a kidnapper. "We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning…Autism."

"We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It’s only going to get worse," said another ad signed "Bulimia."

"We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay," said another add from "ADHD." Other ransom ads came from kidnappers named Depression, Asperger’s Syndrome and OCD.

Created pro bono by advertising giant BBDO, the ads were planned to run in New York magazine, Newsweek, Parents, Education Update, Mental Health News and other publications and on 11 billboards and 200 kiosks, according to the press release. [9]

Immediate Outrage

The hostage campaign drew immediate public outrage and more than a dozen advocacy groups joined together in an online petition calling for an end to it. “This is a demonstration of the assaultive tactics used by psychiatry today--in particular, academic psychiatrists and university-based medical centers that are under the influence of their pharmaceutical partners,” Vera Sharav wrote in alerts to AHRP’s mailing list. “If Dr. Koplewicz et al. are not stopped, the campaign will be hitting the rest of the country,” she warned, and informed readers that the campaign was formulated by BBDO, “a major direct to consumer prescription drug advertising firm,” asking the New York State Attorney General’s office to investigate.

Days after the backlash, the center revoked the advertising campaign “after the effort drew a strongly negative reaction,” reported [10] the New York Times. Koplewicz told the Times the decision was made by the center with no pressure from New York University and they planned to introduce a new campaign in the next three months. However, he left the Child Study Center at NYU in 2009 to start his own facility, initially called the Child Study Center Foundation, but changed to the Child Mind Institute, in 2010.

There was more controversy when Koplewicz left the center. When he announced his resignation, New York University "forbade him from entering his office and it pushed out professors who had said they wanted to join him at Child Mind Institute,” reported the New York Times. [11] Twelve NYU professors nevertheless followed Koplewicz to the Child Mind Institute as well as most of the Child Study Center’s influential board of directors, which included Garber Neidich, a chairwoman at the Whitney Museum, the founders of the Tribeca Film Festival founders and some well known financiers. The toxic send-off was followed by the New York State Office of Mental Health firing Koplewicz [12] from his job of nearly four years as director of the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, an affiliate of NYU School of Medicine.

Though Koplewicz' Child Mind Institute is supposedly a non-profit, it is ensconced on Park Avenue in Manhattan and Koplewicz' hourly rate “can be as high as $1,000 (three to four times that of the average Manhattan therapist),” says the Times. In a chilling interview on Education Update Online [13], Koplewicz says the reason his institute works closely with schools "is simply that’s where the kids are" (bringing to mind Willy Sutton, who robbed banks because "that’s where the money is").

Last month in the Wall Street Journal [14], Koplewicz wrote that "no studies have examined the effect of long-term use" of ADHD meds, but they "have been in use for 70 years, and there is no evidence that suggests any adverse effects." But there has been a large federal study of the long-term effects of the drugs and it shows they are "ineffective over longer periods," and "that long-term use of the drugs can stunt children's growth," reported the Washington Post. [15] Oops.

Other Pediatric Drug Proponents

Only one child in 10,000 has pediatric schizophrenia--some say one in 30,000--but for Pharma it is an untapped market. Symptoms of childhood schizophrenia include "social deficits" and "delusions...related to childhood themes," writes Gabriele Masi, in an article titled "Children with Schizophrenia: Clinical Picture and Pharmacological Treatment," in the journal CNS Drugs. [16] What child doesn't have "social deficits" and "delusions" like imaginary playmates?

Masi has received research funding from Eli Lilly, served as an adviser to the drug company Shire, and been on speakers bureaus for Sanofi Aventis, AstraZeneca, GSK and Janssen, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry [17].

Joining Masi in pursuing pediatric pathology is Joan L. Luby,  director of the Early Emotional Development Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In an article in the Archives of General Psychiatry, she alerts the world to the problem of "preschool depression [18]." Researchers used to believe that "young children were too cognitively and emotionally immature to experience depressive effects," says the paper, which was widely picked up the mainstream press, but they now believe preschoolers can and do suffer from major depressive disorder (MDD). "The potential public health importance of identification of preschool MDD is underscored by the established unique efficacy of early intervention during the preschool period," says the article. [19] Translation: Big Pharma can clean up if kids are diagnosed young.

Luby "has received grant/research support from Janssen, has given occasional talks sponsored by AstraZeneca, and has served as a consultant for Shire Pharmaceutical," according to a journal article she co-wrote. [20]

Then there is Mani Pavuluri, a doctor who finds deficiencies of mania and bipolar drugs in tots. "Pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) is complex illness with a chronic course, requiring multiple medications over the longitudinal course of illness, with limited recovery and high relapse rate," she wrote in the journal Minerva Pediatrica last year. [21]Pavuluri receives research dollars from GlaxoSmithKline [22] as well as from the National Institutes of Health, aka our tax dollars, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Two features that characterize the pediatric medicine practiced by the NYU Child Study Center, Koplewicz, Mani, Luby and Pavuluri are they term the "diseases" they identify undertreated and underdiagnosed and they urge early treatment when symptoms first appear. (Before the symptoms go away on their own?)

Yet the very fact that such diseases are lifelong conditions is reason to wait to medicate, said Mark Zimmerman, director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital at the 2010 American Psychiatric Association annual meeting in New Orleans. [23] Nor can parents with medicated children know if their kids even needed the drugs, since symptoms from the drugs are often called the "disease," says Peter Breggin in a recent interview. [24]

One thing doctors on both sides of the pediatric drug controversy agree on is that the decision to put a child on drugs will likely sentence him or her to a lifetime of medications. What they disagree about is whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. 

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/how-kids-are-getting-hooked-pills-life