Looking at Health

Taking a Look at Health

We are dedicating as much of this issue of the newsletter as we can to health issues. Many, many harmful things are going on in our world and harmful things are entering into our food chain as well as being forced upon us in a variety of situations. Take vaccinations, for instance. We have received alarming reports from England and California concerning the increase of autism in little children. Did you know that mercury is an ingredient in vaccinations? Did you also know that mercury is suspected as the agent which causes autism in young children?

Mercury can also be one of the chief ingredients in other ailments. See our article on mercury submitted by Pam Stanford. We think that Pam has written an excellent article exposing mercury both in the spiritual and physical realms.

Here are some news items from the Electronic Telegraph in London concerning vaccinations:

Sunday 29 September 1996

A NEW programme of vaccinations ordered by the Department of Health has been attacked as "risky and unnecessary" by doctors and parents.

The Government plan to give second doses of MMR vaccine to three- to five-year-olds as protection against measles, mumps and rubella could have side-effects such as epilepsy, asthma and eczema, according to some doctors.

Parent groups, including The Informed Parent and Jabs, have called for an independent inquiry into the new vaccination round, due to start on October 1. The vaccinations are intended as a booster for those given to babies at a year old.

Dr Joanna Cleeton, a GP in Wrexham, north Wales, who has studied problems associated with vaccinations, is advising parents not to let children injected with MMR as babies be re-inoculated. "What is happening beggars belief," said Dr Cleeton. "Little children are being pumped full of vaccines, and there is only so much their immune systems can take."

She said that the side-effects of MMR included convulsions and screaming fits, eczema, asthma, epilepsy and behavioural problems. "There is a whole host of possible side-effects, some of which, such as arthritis, may not become apparent for many years."

Dr Cleeton has refused vaccinations for her children, four-year-old Madeline and Edward, aged two. She believes the medical profession is misguided, saying: "Their attitude is wrong. I read an article in the September issue of Doctor magazine, headlined 'Catch-up jabs offer healthy cash boost'. It said that doctors would get paid £5.45 by their health authorities for every new MMR injection, making a profit of several hundred pounds.

"It talked of the new vaccinations in terms of being 'an opportunity to earn a little extra money', and even suggested 'no harm' would come from vaccinating children who had already had measles and rubella, even though they would have natural immunity. This new national course of MMR vaccinations is totally unnecessary. There is plenty of evidence to indicate it is dodgy and a risk to children."

'There have already been problems with MMR vaccines. We have heard of 325 children with severe side-effects'

Magda Taylor, founder of The Informed Parent, said: "The Department of Health originally told everyone that the first vaccination was for life. Now it seems that is not the case."

Mrs Taylor said her two children had suffered as a result of other vaccinations. Her daughter, Nancy, now six, developed eczema after receiving polio and diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus vaccines as a baby, and Ruby, eight, "stopped thriving and did not gain for a year" after a being given MMR vaccine when she was 13 months old. Mrs Taylor launched the group because she felt the Health Department did not inform parents adequately.

Another parents' group, Jabs, called for postponement of the new programme. The group's organiser, Jackie Fletcher, said: "There have already been problems with MMR vaccines. We have heard of 325 children with severe side-effects, including epilepsy, deafness, autism, paralysis, ME, inflammatory bowel disorder and brain damage." She said parents should at least request that their children be given a blood test to check if they needed an MMR booster.

A spokesman for the Health Department said the new round of vaccinations was being implemented on the "independent" advice of the Government-funded Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

"Our intention is to totally eliminate measles, mumps and rubella," she said.

Sunday 24 November 1996

Measles jabs suspected in autism cases By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent

THE Department of Health is under pressure to fund research into the safety of childhood vaccines, as evidence grows of a link between the injections and autism.

There have already been concerns about vaccines causing other forms of brain damage. Now, one of the world's leading experts on autism is backing parent groups in their demands for studies to be done on the vaccination risk.

Dr Bernard Rimland, director of America's Autism Research Institute, said the idea that vaccines could be causing the condition was unpopular with the medical establishment.

"But there is now no doubt in my mind that something serious is happening," he said. "We have been surprised and dismayed that so little is known about the causes of autism. It is time to tackle this aggressively," said Dr Rimland, who was technical adviser on Rain Man, the film in which Dustin Hoffman portrayed an autistic man with a remarkable memory.

The number of autism cases is unclear, but is thought to be increasing. The National Autistic Society, which is launching Autism Awareness Week next week, said that this could be because there was more awareness of the condition, particularly since Rain Man. The society would not be drawn on the possibility of a link between the condition and vaccines.

A class action being prepared by Dawbarns Solicitors on behalf of vaccine-damaged children includes 169 cases allegedly linked to the measles, mumps and rubella inoculations. Kirsten Limb, of Dawbarns, said there had been a further 200 inquiries from parents who feared their children might have developed autism. The cases were all of severe atypical autism, in which the condition appeared to develop following vaccination.

Autism is a complex condition, believed to be caused by organic brain damage. Sufferers develop irrational fears and obsessions, and are often described as living in their own world.

It is generally believed that children are born with autism. However, in all the cases presented to Dawbarns the children had been developing normally until they had their vaccinations. One theory is that the vaccine, particularly the measles part, causes encephalitis - swelling of the brain - that triggers autism. All the children with atypical autism also have Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disorder that has been linked with measles.

Rosemary Kessick, whose son William, aged eight, was finally diagnosed a year ago as autistic, said her child had been developing normally until he was vaccinated at 14 months. Then, from an infant who had started speaking, playing normally and making eye contact, he became withdrawn, started head banging, was clumsy and uncoordinated and lost the words he had learnt. He also had severe stomach pains and developed food intolerances.

Mrs Kessick, from Peterborough, said it was "just not acceptable" that the authorities had failed to conduct research to prove or disprove a link with the vaccination.

She said: "My son is beautiful, truly beautiful, but he cannot talk, he is hyperactive and incontinent."

Wednesday 8 September 1999

New fear over autism link to triple vaccine
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

A NUMBER of children who receive the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may be affected by a condition similar to autism, a scientist said yesterday.

The suggestion of a link by Dr Ken Aitken, a clinical neuropsychologist and an international expert on autism, reverses the view he took as a member of an independent group which found no evidence of damage to babies from the vaccine. Yesterday he called for more research into a possible link between the MMR vaccine and Heller's syndrome following studies in the United States.

"It is fair to say that I have changed my view somewhat," said Dr Aitken. "I am suggesting that a small number of children may have been affected by the vaccine."

But he stressed that parents must continue to have their children vaccinated. "It is possible that in vulnerable children the effects of natural measles could be far more severe in these individuals."

He told the Radio 4 Today programme, earlier: "Measles is a very dangerous disorder. Forty-four million children were affected by measles worldwide last year and of those 44 million, one and a half million died. It is one of the major killers of the 20th century. We have to be very careful that measles does not become a problem of epidemic proportion in the UK due to opting out of vaccination."

Friday 26 January 2001

Mother of five children with autism to sue over MMR jabs
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

A MOTHER who claims that five of her children developed autism after having their measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations is taking legal action on behalf of three of them.

Mary Robinson, 38, from Hayle, Cornwall, said only her oldest child did not have autism. Solicitors had accepted as clients Leah, three, Hayden, nine, and Tyson, 11, who have been officially registered as autistic, she said. Solicitors for the Robinson family said yesterday that 850 British families had now been granted legal aid.

A spokesman for Alexander Harris, joint lead solicitors in the MMR action against the drug companies Aventis Pasteur, Merck and Co, SmithKline Beecham and SmithKline and French Laboratories, said they had about 750 clients. She said: "We get about 10 approaches from families a month. Not all are accepted as clients. Children have to meet our own criteria for inclusion."

Mrs Robinson said that she was not told about possible risks from the injection. She claimed that she would never have continued having her children immunised. She said: "They were, to all intents and purposes, normal children. Then they had the MMR injections."

According to figures just released by the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS), the number of new children entering California's developmental services system is continuing to increase at an alarming rate.

The latest figures from DDS show that 566 new children with professionally diagnosed DSM IV autism, NOT including any children with PDD, NOS, Asperger's or any other autism spectrum disorder, have entered the system in the past 90 days.

It should be noted that in 1994, there were 667 new cases for the entire year. In the fourth quarter of 2000 alone (three short months) we added 556 new children.

Since the release of the California Report, which documented a 273% increase in autism from 1987-98, there have been 3,871 new children added to the system, 1,927 new chilchildren in 2000 alone.... a 38% increase in two-years.

It took over 25 years, from the inception of the establishment of California's developmental services system in 1969 to 1994 to have 5,100 persons with autism in the system.

Most disturbing of all is the fact that in 1999, 2000, and the first half of 2001 we will add at least another 5,100 new cases.... this time in just 2 1/2 years!!

Since the autism epidemic began, the percentage of overall caseload growth for autism in the California system has increased from a steady 3% of the total caseload, which also includes mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy, to the current 30 to 34% of the caseload.

Again, these numbers do not include any autism spectrum disorders other than full-blown professionally diagnosed cases of DSM IV autism.

The most recent 556 new intakes, as always, are children under 10 years of age. There is no evidence of "underdiagnosed" or missing adults or teenagers who have now been discovered with autism coming into the system.

These are newly diagnosed children, not adults or teenagers. The California system has been diagnosing autism for over 30 years. It is absolutely astonishing to me that anyone could suggest that somehow in the past we have missed or misdiagnosed a condition that anyone who spends less than 1/2 hour with a person with autism couldn't recognize from across an airport, be it in 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, or today. As the best data source in the world on autism, California continues to lead the way in documenting the number one public health care crisis in the United States today...the autism epidemic.

The Department of Developmental Services estimates that it costs taxpayers at least $2 million for each child added to the system for a lifetime of care....California's contribution to that taxpayer liability in the last 90 days has been $1.132 billion. No figure can ever be put on the cost to the children and their families...6 new children and their families everyday of the week in California alone.

(Excerpt from Dr. Mercola’s Newsletter available free at: Mercola.com)

Not only is there a growing problem with mercury infested vaccinations leading to autism, but it has been reported recently that as many as 1-1/2—2 million children from Britain may have been vaccinated with a serum made from bovine solution! The bovine solution came primarily from cows.

Since "mad cow disease" has become a great problem in Britain, the worry now is that these millions of children may have been infected with the disease. Since the disease is slow acting in so many cases, the disease may not show up in these children for another 10-20 years!

There is a possibility that the tainted vaccination serum may also have been shipped to America and millions of our own children and grand-children may have been inoculated with the potentially deadly serum!

Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a leading zoologist from Germany, has found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate, lending more credence to the claims of many that genetically modified (GM) technology could pose serious health risks. A four-year study by a respected German zoologist found that an alien gene used to modify rapeseed (canola oil) had transferred to bacteria living inside the guts of honeybees.

The research is disturbing because it suggests that many types of bacteria could become contaminated by genes used in GM technology, including those that live inside the human digestive system. If this happened, it could have an impact on the bacteria's vital role in helping the human body fight disease, aid digestion, facilitate blood clotting, and other beneficial functions.

Britain's Agriculture Minister suggested that farmers who had accidentally grown contaminated GM rapeseed crops in Britain rip up their crops.

Professor Kaatz has been reluctant to talk about his research, because he fears a backlash from the scientific community similar to that faced by Dr Arpad Pustzai, who claimed that genetically modified potatoes damaged the stomach lining of rats. Dr. Pustzai was sacked and had his work discredited.

Kaatz said he 'was not surprised' at the results. Asked if this had implications for the bacteria inside the human gut, he said: 'Maybe, but I am not an expert on this.'

Dr Mae-Wan Ho, a British geneticist and a critic of GM technology, has no doubts about the dangers. She said, 'These findings are very worrying and provide the first real evidence of what many have feared. Everybody is keen to exploit GM technology, but nobody is looking at the risk of horizontal gene transfer. We are playing about with genetic structures that existed for millions of years and the experiment is running out of control.'

One of the biggest concerns is if the anti-biotic resistant gene used in some GM crops crossed over to bacteria, which could leave us unable to treat serious illnesses like meningitis and E coli.

COMMENT FROM DR. MERCOLA: Although this is a significant and disturbing finding, anyone who is really surprised by this has fallen for the propaganda that is put out by the government and those with financial interests in the GM industry.

I find the fact that this problem was identified in canola oil (rapeseed) crops another confirmation of the recommendation in the diet advice to avoid canola oil. Do not fall into the hype that traditional medicine promotes regarding the promotion of this oil as superior due to its concentration of monounsaturated fatty acids. Olive oil is far superior and has been around for thousands of years. Canola oil is a relatively recent development and the original crops were unfit for human consumption due to their high content of a dangerous fatty acid called euric acid. Genetic manipulation of the type discussed above was able to lower the euric acid content to less dangerous levels. Clearly, it would be wise to avoid this oil and substitute olive oil in its place. If the taste of olive oil is a problem, or if one is frying or sautéing food than one should consider coconut oil or coconut butter. Many nutritionally uniformed individuals would consider this unwise due to its nearly exclusive content of saturated fat. However, this is just not the case. Because it has mostly saturated fat, it is much less dangerous to heat. The heat will not tend to cause the oil to transition into dangerous trans fats.

Brooke Shelby Biggs, MotherJones.comMarch 20, 2001

Riddle: How do you make a liberal implode?

Pit one of his closely held beliefs against another. That's precisely what the biotech industry is up to right now, merrily watching as critics of genetic modification quietly liquefy around them over the issue of "golden rice," a new organism purported to prevent blindness in poor children in developing countries.

The aim of the biotechnology industry's audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like well-off first-worlders dubious about genetically-modified foods on the horns of a moral dilemma.

The subject of that advertising campaign is "golden rice," a variety of the grain engineered to contain beta carotene, a source of vitamin A.

Syngenta, the agribusiness company that owns many of the patents on the rice, has claimed that a single month of marketing delay would cause 50,000 children to go blind.

If you're anti-GMO, are you then in favor of poor children going blind? That's the not-so-subtle message from biotech boosters. According to libertarian Reason magazine, "A lifesaving grain is being held hostage by anti-science activists." Similarly, the right-wing Center for Global Food Issues recently issued a press release charging that "radical environmentalists see a lifesaving technology, and try to destroy it with propaganda."

Of course, it is hardly that simple. Even the Rockefeller Foundation, which along with the Swiss government funded the development of golden rice technology, says claims about the potential of golden rice have "gone too far."

The problems with golden rice run deep.

A child would have to eat 15 pounds of the stuff a day to get a day's minimum dietary requirement of vitamin A.

And even then, the child's body may not be able to absorb the nutrient, because in order to convert the beta carotene to vitamin A, the body needs sufficient fat and protein in the diet -- not something malnourished children who eat only rice are likely to have.

Critics argue that agribusiness has created the malnourishment and poverty in places like India where golden rice is being pushed hard, and that the industry is now looking to profit from selling the world a solution.

For example, the extensive monoculture of cash crops such as white rice has pushed other crops -- including leafy vegetables which contain plenty of naturally occurring vitamin A -- out of vast swaths of farmland in developing countries.

If the world embraces the dubious silver bullet of golden rice, critics fear that efforts to reintroduce crops to vary the diets of poor people and help them develop subsistence farming methods will be "knee-capped."

After all, multinational agribusiness can't make money if Third World communities are only growing the foods they need to feed themselves. Agribusiness needs these communities to be dependent on industry, and genetically modified cash crops are a way to keep them that way.

While Monsanto and AstraZeneca have offered to give free licenses for golden rice technology to farmers in the developing world, farmers still have to buy the "inputs," such as special pesticides and fertilizers engineered specifically for the licensed crop, which could worsen a cycle of poverty and debt that GMOs have already created in India, where the suicide rate among farmers who have been roped into growing GMO crops has skyrocketed.

Further, there is legitimate concern that even if the rice were effective and free, the targeted populations would resist it.

Golden rice has a yellow tint, because it is engineered with a daffodil gene to produce beta carotene. The tinted rice may carry the stigma of poverty.

So why, with so much evidence of the downside of golden rice, is the left caving?

Even Greenpeace said recently that golden rice presents a moral dilemma for the group, and has vowed not to disrupt field trials of golden rice, because, unlike crops engineered for higher yields and fatter profits, golden rice is a technology "that serves a good purpose."

If the effect the biotech industry is going for is confusion, division, and paralyzing guilt among the anti-GMO troops, then golden rice has been the most effective weapon in its arsenal to date.

Genetically modified foods did not exist prior to 1995. Ninety percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods and seventy percent of processed foods have genetically modified foods in them.

There are NO STUDIES with humans on what happens when one consumes genetically modified foods. The FDA has ASSUMED that they are equivalent to the original and never required any studies to have them approved.

This is despite the fact that this technology has never existed in the history of the world before.

Absolutely Brilliant!

Especially in light of the US Federal track record on genetically engineered safety which is terrible.

Last year Starlink corn was only approved for animal consumption NOT human consumption. This was because of a concern that could cause allergies in humans. Well Starlink corn would up directly in the human food supply, despite FDA precautions.

There are EIGHT different agencies in the US regulating biotechnology under TWELEVE different set of laws. NONE of the laws had biotechnology in mind when they were passed, as they are 40-50 years old.

Folks this is one of the biggest disasters I have ever seen that is waiting to happen.

You say why aren't people getting sick? Well, the damage may be insidious, similar to smoking and it might require many decades of ingestion to observe an effect.

Already, investigators have found that rats fed genetically modified potatoes had an increased thickening in the lining of their stomach and intestine and a weakening of their immune system.

Here is a sampling of what they have to say:

Yes, gamma rays can kill harmful bacteria in food, but one big problem is that they kill the helpful microflora, too. Bacteria are not just agents of disease.... One need not be a Luddite to recognize the cult of nuclear idolatry.

There are potentially serious concerns about the issues of waste disposal, engineering safety, transport of radioactive material, production of new isotopes, handling by poorly trained personnel, and others we haven't even thought of yet.

I am opposed to food irradiation because it is clear that this process increases the levels of mutagens and carcinogens in the food. The inevitable consequence of this is that in two to five decades in the future, the incidence of cancer will increase from what we see now, in direct proportion to the amounts of irradiated food consumed. Thus, food irradiation becomes very expensive both in terms of human lives, as well as health care costs.

It is distressing to me that despite all the studies, many favorable and many unfavorable, the FDA utilized only five safety studies.

I looked in detail at two of those studies. Each raises considerable question. In one, the irradiated food was obtained from some other group and we are never actually given any data to show that the food was irradiated properly or even irradiated at all.

Additionally, the authors note an increase in abnormalities in dogs at autopsy and then seem to feel that the abnormalities they found were meaningless and should be ignored. In the other study from England, in the group receiving the food irradiated most, there were increased deaths in the offspring and this is completely ignored even though the authors say there is no explanation for it.

To me, it is somewhat amazing that these are listed as two of the five studies that are considered impeccable enough to be evaluated for safety. Those studies have considerable imperfections. For the FDA to selectively choose the five is, I believe, improper for deciding safety.

I am not against food irradiation. I am opposed to the hype, some of which is voiced by people who should know better and therefore appear to be deliberate falsehoods.... I and others worked very hard trying to find a useful place for irradiation during the Atoms for Peace program. Unfortunately, we were not able to find it.

The large scale irradiation of food, as proposed by the industry and administration, represents the largest prospective toxicological experiment in human populations in the history of public health.

What we do know with certainty is that irradiation causes a host of unnatural and sometimes unidentifiable chemicals to be formed within the irradiated foods, and that the number, kind, and permanence of these foreign chemical compounds depend on the food itself and the dose of radiation.

Our ignorance about these foreign compounds makes it simply a fraud to tell the public that we know irradiated foods would be safe to eat; it is dishonorable to trick people into buying irradiated foods, because such behavior is a violation of the basic human right.

It has been shown repeatedly that mutagenic doses of formaldehyde are formed during irradiation of carbohydrate. Meat, although protein, also contains carbohydrates. Anyone can choose not to eat saturated fats and cholesterol, but once the food supply is supplemented with mutagens, it will take massive efforts to dislodge a well entrenched and financed industry which will deny to the end that it is responsible for the inevitable increase in neoplasia which in effect it has caused.

Furthermore, the organisms remaining in the irradiated food are by definition radiation resistant, and no work whatever has been done on what these new organisms populating the gastrointestinal tract and their progeny will do to man and the environment.

First, since we do not know what we are seeking in the experiments, though they are designed with the best toxicological techniques available, they can not prove the safety of the irradiated food in question, but merely give us a measure of confidence that it is safe. The ultimate test will be in the human after lifetimes or generations of consumption.

These studies reviewed in the 1982 memo from the FDA were not adequate by 1982 standards, and are even less adequate by 1993 standards to evaluate the safety of any product, especially a food product such as irradiated foods.

Radiation is a carcinogen, mutagen, and teratogen. At doses of 100,000 rads to fruits and vegetables, the cells of the fruits and vegetables will be destroyed, but fungi, bacteria, and viruses growing on the fruits and vegetables will not all be killed or inactivated at these doses. They will be mutated, possibly leading to more virulent contaminants. Has anyone addressed this problem?

There is so much more that we could post here, but we must leave room for other materials. The major point is that business, including the medical field is following after profit, not health.

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