They make "bugs" stronger, they make us weaker, and they hurt our ability to excrete toxic heavy metals. I read in Parenting magazine a few months ago thta 85% of pediatricians surveyed said that they prescribe antibiotics for kids entirely because they don't want to argue with parents--despite the fact that the children have viruses, not bacterial infections, and will not benefit from antibiotics at all. It's practically criminal--and we'll all be sorry, if we aren't already.

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The End of Antibiotics

The End of Antibiotics

by Mark Sircus Ac., OMD


(NaturalNews) Eventually antibiotics are going to be seen as one of the worst things to ever come out of pharmaceutical science because in the end, they have made us only weaker in the face of ever increasingly strong super bugs that are resistant to all the antibiotics doctors have at their disposal. When we look at how deep the rabbit hole goes with antibiotics, we will get sick in our souls. Antibiotics have fulfilled their anti–biotic anti-life role leaving a long trail of death and suffering in the wake of their use.

Diseases include measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, pneumonia, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio. All were in decline for several decades before the introduction of antibiotics or vaccines - Dr. Lawrence Wilson.

Antibiotics do not kill yeast. Many women find after taking antibiotics, they get vaginal yeast infections (because their normal bacterial balance has been lost). Antibiotics bring on fungal and yeast infections thus will eventually be seen as a major cause of cancer since more and more oncologists are seeing yeast and fungal infections as an integral part of cancer and its cause. With upwards of 40 percent of all cancers thought to be involved with and caused by infections, the subject of antibiotics and the need for something safer, more effective and life serving is imperative.

It may be some time before we really enter the predicted "post antibiotic era" in which common infections are frequently untreatable - Dr. Marc Lipsitch et al. (Harvard School of Public Health).

Antibiotics kill all bacteria in the body, including the ones we need.

An antibiotic is a substance produced by certain bacteria or fungi that kills other cells or interferes with their growth. In nature, these substances help some microbes survive by limiting the multiplication of other microbes that share the same environment. Antibiotics that attack pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes without severely harming normal body cells are useful as drugs but there does not seem to be any from the pharmaceutical companies that do not do damage. Dr. Lisa Landymore-Lin wrote all about this in her book Poisonous Prescriptions asking, 'Do Antibiotics Cause Asthma and Diabetes?' We are now beginning to question the role of antibiotics as a cause of cancer since they do lead to pathogen overgrowth especially in the area of yeast and fungi. Chris Woollams writes, "It is estimated that 70 per cent of the British population have a yeast infection. The primary cause of this is our love of antibiotics. Swollen glands? Take antibiotics. Tonsillitis? Take antibiotics."

Two studies in the recent past have shown an association between the use of antibiotics with higher incidence of breast cancer.

In one study the increased risk was small, and the importance of the link has been played down by UK breast-cancer experts, but the findings add weight to recent studies that have found links between antibiotics and other diseases. In the past few years, heavy antibiotic use has been linked to the inflammatory bowel disorder, Crohn's disease, and to children developing allergies such as Hay fever and asthma. And as we shall see below, antibiotics play a hidden role in autism and other neurological diseases.

The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported a study on 10,000 women in which women who took over 500 days of antibiotics in a 17 year period (dubbed 25 plus doses) had twice the risk of breast cancer as those that took none at all. Even women taking just one had a statistical risk increase to 1.5 times.

The consequences of resistance in some bacteria can be measured as increases in the term and magnitude of morbidity, higher rates of mortality, and greater costs of hospitalization for patients infected with resistant bacteria - Dr. Marc Lipsitch et al.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are undiscriminating: in addition to "bad bacteria," they also kill healthy bacteria which normally live in the intestines and the vagina, and which are a necessary part of the indigenous flora to keep the body healthy. When the "good" bacteria are killed with antibiotics, then yeast, which is part of the normal flora of the body, can begin to overgrow because the antibiotics have altered the body's healthy terrain (internal ecological balance) allowing the yeast to hyperproliferate and cause many far-reaching, toxic symptoms.

But modern medicine so far continues to believe that antibiotics have played an important role in staving off bacterial infections since Alexander Fleming first discovered them in 1927. Many doctors are finally beginning to see that the effectiveness of these so-called miracle drugs has waned as some of the very bacteria they are meant to control have been mutating into new forms that don't respond to treatment. Many medical experts blame this phenomenon on both the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in recent years in both human medicine and in agriculture.

According to several studies, obstetricians and gynecologists write 2,645,000 antibiotic prescriptions every week. Internists prescribe 1,416,000 per week. This works out to 211,172,000 prescriptions annually in the United States, just for these two specialties. Pediatricians prescribe over $500 million worth of antibiotics annually just for one condition, ear infections. Yet topical povidone iodine (PVP-I) is as effective as topical ciprofloxacin, with a superior advantage of having no in vitro drug resistance and the added benefit of reduced cost of treatment.

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, taking properly prescribed medical drugs was listed as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Antibiotics
were listed in this category because antibiotics can be deadly.

A 17-year-old St Margaret's College student in New Zealand has exposed multiple antibiotic-resistant bugs in fresh chicken sold in supermarkets? Jane Millar's discovery of a range of resistant bacteria in chickens that could compromise antibiotic treatment in humans is an important finding that the bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics not used in the poultry industry but important for treating serious infections in humans.

We can create resistance to medically important antibiotics by using antibiotics that are presumably safe in agriculture - Jane Millar.

Jane bought six fresh chickens - free-range, barn-raised and organic – from a supermarket. She took samples from each bird and grew bug colonies, which she used to test different antibiotics. Apramycin is an antibiotic used sparingly by the New Zealand poultry industry to treat infections. The bacteria of two chickens tested resistant to apramycin. They also proved resistant to another two antibiotics from the same family - gentamicin and tobramycin - used for serious human infections. Gentamicin is not used by the poultry industry; tobramycin is restricted to human use only.

A recent risk assessment study commissioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has estimated that about 8,000-10,000 persons in the U.S. each year acquire fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter infections from chicken and attempt to treat those infections with a fluoroquinolone.

Every day, new strains of bacteria, fungi, and other pathogenic microorganisms are becoming resistant to the antibiotics that once dispatched them with extreme prejudice.

"We know that antimicrobial resistance will follow antimicrobial use as sure as night follows day," said Dr. John A. Jernigan, deputy chief of prevention and response from the Center of Disease Control. "It's just a biological phenomenon." It turns out that the indiscriminate killing of harmless microbes damages the body in complex ways we are only beginning to understand. Powerful antibiotics introduced into the complex environment in our intestines cause mayhem, much like a series of bombs tossed into a market square. Antibiotic resistance is a widespread problem, and one that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "one of the world's most pressing public health problems."

One of the deadliest germs is a staph bacteria called M.R.S.A., short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which lives harmlessly on the skin but causes havoc when it enters the body. Patients who do survive M.R.S.A. often spend months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue. Hospitalizations associated with a drug-resistant form of a Staphylococcus bacterium doubled over six years in the U.S. to nearly 280,000 cases in 2005. The death toll rose from 4,700 in 1999 to about 6,600 in 2005. It estimated that 94,000 Americans suffered invasive MRSA infections in 2005 and that about 19,000 died.

One out of every 20 patients contracts an infection during a hospital stay in the US. Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year, as many as AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined. The vast majority of lethal cases occur in hospitals and nursing homes, where open wounds and punctures provide the opportunistic staph a ready path to the bloodstream and organs. The dangers of infection are worsening as many hospital infections can no longer be cured with common antibiotics.

More than half the time, doctors and other caregivers break the most fundamental rule of hygiene by
failing to clean their hands before treating a patient.

"Recently there has been an alarming epidemic caused by community-associated (CA)-MRSA strains, which can cause severe infections that can result in necrotizing fasciitis or even death in otherwise healthy adults outside of healthcare settings," is the word coming from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) research team, headed by Dr. Michael Otto.

Necrotizing fasciitis is the so-called flesh-eating disease that can destroy healthy tissue and even kill patients. The team found that some strains on MRSA secrete a compound called phenol-soluble modulin or PSM. It attracts immune system cells called neutrophils, the researchers found, and then blows them up in a process called lysis. Neutrophils are key immune cells involved in clearing bacterial infections, so destroying them would allow the bacteria to thrive almost unmolested.
"In the United States, CA-MRSA is now the cause of the majority of infections that result in trips to the emergency room. It is unclear what makes CA-MRSA strains more successful in causing human disease compared with their hospital-associated counterparts," they add.

When the peaceful activities of a normal microbial population are disrupted, malevolent bacteria may take full advantage of the opportunity to strike. The intestinal infection C. difficile colitis, now rampaging through hospitals around the world, is one of the worst such complication of antibiotic use.

Clostridium difficile was first recognized as a hospital microbe in 1978. By 1996, it had increased to 31 cases per 100,000 people discharged from U.S. hospitals. In 2003, the most recent year for complete statistics, prevalence had risen to 61 per 100,000. C. diff is part of the natural flora, or bacteria, in the colon. "We're seeing all of the warning signs that this is the next MRSA," said former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a Manhattan-based nonprofit. "It spreads like wildfire in hospitals."

Clostridium difficile is a spore-forming toxin-producing bacterium that is overtaking peoples' large intestines from which it mounts an attack on the bloodstream. Like MRSA, Clostridium difficile has become multi-drug-resistant. Although once a bacterium that mostly affected elderly, hospitalized patients, a bolder strain is crippling the robust. In emergency efforts to save some patients' lives surgeons remove the entire large intestine to prevent overwhelming infection.

One case had been treated by a dermatologist for an ingrown hair on his back and prescribed an antibiotic. He took only a few pills, but quickly became ill. Based on what his doctors told him, the short course of antibiotics proved sufficient to destroy virtually all the natural bacteria in his intestine - except C. diff, which was freed to ravage his colon.

Frequently, stethoscopes, blood-pressure monitors and other equipment are contaminated with live bacteria. Yet doctors and nurses almost never clean the stethoscope before listening to a patient's chest.

"It strikes precisely those hospitals which are more 'high-tech', and handle more serious illnesses. Applying more disinfectant is not the answer; some strains of germs have actually been found thriving in bottles of hospital disinfectant! The more antibacterial chemical 'weapons' are being used, the more bacteria are becoming resistant to them," writes Dr. Carl Wieland.

Health-care officials are increasingly concerned about emerging new forms of drug-resistant Tuberculosis (TB). According to the WHO, outbreaks of drug-resistant tuberculosis are showing up all over the world and threaten to touch off a worldwide epidemic of virtually incurable tuberculosis. An October 1997 survey by the WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease estimates that 50 million people are infected with a strain of TB that is drug-resistant. Many of those are said to carry multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, incurable by two or more of the standard drugs.

New DNA technology has found hundreds of previously unrecognized species in the traditional stomping grounds of the mouth and intestine, and traces of bacteria even in tissues previously thought to be sterile.

Lessons from Autism

Medical scientists at Arizona State University tell us that antibiotic use is known to almost completely inhibit excretion of mercury in rats due to alteration of gut flora. Thus, higher use of oral antibiotics in the children with autism may have reduced their ability to excrete mercury. Higher usage of oral antibiotics in infancy may also partially explain the high incidence of chronic gastrointestinal problems in individuals with autism.

Many physicians are unaware of lasting adverse effects caused by routinely prescribed medications such as antibiotics. Antibiotic therapy for minor colds and runny noses is a common practice. People routinely receive multiple courses of broad-spectrum antibiotics throughout life or are injected with long-acting corticosteroid medicine for joint or muscle pain. Once established, sub-clinical colonization with yeast in the body may persist unrecognized for many years. Antibiotics, such as tetracycline, can greatly increase yeast in the colon after only a few days.

The extensive use of antibiotics will make the condition of Candida much worse because it reduces heavy metal excretion, which is a food source for the yeast like organism and also killing the beneficial bacteria at the same time.

Normally, candida albicans lives peacefully in our intestines and elsewhere, in harmony with other flora that keep the yeast in check. Take an antibiotic and all this changes. By suppressing the normal flora, candida takes over and problems begin. In its mild form, the result is diarrhea or a yeast infection. Dr. Elmer Cranton says that, "Yeast overgrowth is partly iatrogenic (caused by the medical profession) and can be caused by antibiotics and cortisone medications. A diet high in sugar also promotes overgrowth of yeast. A highly refined diet common in industrialized nations not only promotes growth of yeast, but is also deficient in many of the essential vitamins and minerals needed by the immune system. Chemical colorings, flavorings, preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, etc., add more
stress on the immune system."

Children with autism had significantly (2.1-fold) higher levels of mercury in their baby teeth but similar levels of lead and similar levels of zinc. Children with autism also had significantly higher usage of oral antibiotics during their first 12 to 36 months of life. Reporting in the July 11, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers say the use of antibiotics as prevention boosts risks for drug resistance while doing nothing to shield kids from future urinary tract infections (UTIs). Giving antibiotics to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections in small children not only will not help but will hurt these children. Prior use of antibiotics to prevent infection did boost the likelihood of developing a drug-resistant infection by nearly 7.5 times. Indeed, 61 percent of recurrent urinary tract infections were caused by a pathogen with antibiotic resistance, the researchers pointed out.

In a 2005 study, the antibiotic Augmentin TM has been implicated in the formation of autism. The study strongly suggests the possibility of ammonia poisoning as a result of young children taking Augmentin. Augmentin has been given to children since the late 1980's for bacterial infections.

Many physicians seem to be unaware that birth control pills comprised of the hormones estrogen and progesterone can also make the body more susceptible to fungal infections. If antibiotics are prescribed, it acts as a double whammy to ensuring a fungal infection will take hold by diminishing the protective bacteria in the intestines. Many pregnant women seek medical treatment for minor problems and are indiscriminately given antibiotics and this begins a long decline into problems that are complicated at each turn by OBGYN doctors at birth and by pediatricians who just love to poison children with the toxic chemicals found in vaccines. In many places in the world they still give mercury shots at birth.

Microforms poison us with their waste products.

The waste products are acetylaldehyde, uric acid, alloxin, alcohols, lactic acid, etc.

Antibiotics may be to blame for hundreds of children developing autism after having the controversial MMR jab. More than two-thirds of youngsters with the condition received four or more antibiotics in their first year, a British survey has revealed. It is thought the drugs weakened their immune systems, leaving them unable to withstand the impact of the triple jab. Allopathic medicine has been stubborn and slow to look at its abusive use of antibiotics. It's the same with vaccines, the holy grail of medicine. But with last-line-of-defence antibiotics failing on increasingly drug-resistant superbugs and young children's systems being destroyed by them you would think they would wake up and find some alternatives.

Antibiotics are mostly derived from fungi and are therefore classified as mycotoxins. Mycotoxins Are Poisons.

About the author

Mark A. Sircus Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA)http://www.imva.info/. Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and in the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla, in México, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare.

He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book The Terror of Pediatric Medicine is a free e-book one can read. Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites.

He has most recently released his Survival Medicine for the 21st Century compendium (2,200 page ebook) and is racing to finish his Winning the War Against Cancer book. Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and is fathering in a new medical approach that uses sea water and different concentrates taken from it for health and healing. Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions.
International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/

The sad thing is that these "blunders" (which seems too light a term) are not all in the past, as the article's subtitle implies. Consider thimerosal, the mercury preservative used in all vaccines until recently (and still used in many vaccines even now), despite the fact that mercury is one of the worst neurotoxins on the planet. Thimerosal was developed by Eli Lilly in 1930, and tested exactly once before Lilly began using it on the general population. Lilly "tested" thimerosal on 22 patients with meningococcal meningitis. Most of these patients died within a few days of taking thimerosal, but Lilly decided that the deaths were due to meningitis, not thimerosal, and went ahead with the use of thimerosal in products for all of us. How great! The FDA didn't have the teeth to review drugs back then, and once the FDA did have the power to perform such reviews, thimerosal was already grandfathered in. Double great!

Just for fun, how about another one? How about the DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccine? The reactions to that one were so bad that kids don't get it anymore. (They now get the comparatively safer DTaP, with acellular pertussis rather than whole-cell pertussis.) Read on for more information on the FDA's sloppy job...

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FDA’s Biggest Blunders - Page 1 - MSN Health & Fitness - Health Topics

FDA’s Biggest Blunders
The Food and Drug Administration’s sordid drug recall past.
By Jim Kling for MSN Health & Fitness

Merck’s Vioxx, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) painkiller, made headlines in 2004 when the company voluntarily withdrew it from the U.S. market following reports of increased rates of strokes and heart attacks in patients taking the drug chronically. Vioxx was the most famous of more than a dozen drugs withdrawn from the market since 2000.

But withdrawal of drugs is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took on its modern form as a reaction to the horrific side effects of the drug thalidomide, introduced in Europe in the 1950s as a sleep aid and treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women.

By 1962, it was evident that thalidomide caused severe limb deformities, and Frances Kelsey, the FDA’s medical officer at the time, kept the drug off of the market. In Europe, 8,000 babies were born with defects resulting from the drug. That tragedy prompted a Congressional bill that gave the FDA the authority to raise the safety bar and require that companies prove the effectiveness of drugs before they could be marketed in the United States.

FDA failures

Recently, the FDA has come under attack for not living up to its mission. The agency failed to catch serious side effects in a number of drugs before they were approved, thus forcing embarrassing withdrawals.

Critics attribute these failures to the agency’s close ties with the medical industry. These close ties are exemplified by the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fees Act, which requires industry to pay user fees that help fund the agency’s review of new drugs for approval.

Part of the purpose of the legislation was to shorten the approval times and get drugs to market more quickly. But according to a 2002 report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the legislation ultimately caused increased workload for the FDA’s reviewers. There was also a slight increase in the percentage of drugs that had to be withdrawn from the market.

The side effect of withdrawing drugs

The flip side of the decision to withdraw a drug due to rare, serious side effects is that it can leave some patients with few therapeutic options. For example, some patients objected to the withdrawal of Zelnorm, a drug used to treat irritable bowel syndrome.

Seriously ill patients “should be able to take a risk,” says Peter Barton Hutt, senior counsel at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP, and former FDA chief counsel.

But Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, argues that it isn’t that simple.

“The problem is that patients aren’t really told ([about a drug’s risks). Doctors aren’t giving that information, partly because they don’t spend that much time with patients and partly because they don’t know themselves—they haven’t read all 10 studies (performed on a drug).”

The FDA’s Hall of Shame

Vioxx

What it is: Vioxx is a COX-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) painkiller related to drugs such as ibuprofen and naproxen.

Why it was taken off the market: The result of a clinical study showed an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes.

Expiration date: Merck withdrew Vioxx from the worldwide markets in 2004.

Bextra

What it is: Like Vioxx, Bextra is an NSAID painkiller.

Why it was taken off the market: Two short-term studies indicated potential increases in cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes and increased risk of serious skin reactions. The FDA also concluded that Bextra had no unique advantages over other NSAIDs. FDA scientists decided that the known cardiovascular risks of other NSAIDs demonstrated in long-term trials justified a request for withdrawal.

Expiration date: Pfizer withdrew Bextra from the U.S. market in 2005. 

Zelnorm

What it is: Zelnorm is a drug to treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Why it was taken off the market: 29 studies showed that 13 of 11,614 patients taking the drug had heart problems. One of 7,031 patients on placebo experienced the problem. About 500,000 people were taking the drug at the time of its withdrawal. Novartis continues to market the drug in Europe, citing its belief that the trial results were a fluke.

Expiration date: Novartis withdrew Zelnorm from U.S. markets in March 2007. IBS patient groups objected to the withdrawal, arguing that the benefits outweighed the risks. The FDA responded to complaints from patients and physicians by creating a restricted-access program for patients that have no therapeutic alternatives or who had satisfactory outcomes on previous treatment with Zelnorm.

Tysabri

What it is: Tysabri is a drug that treats multiple sclerosis.

Why it was taken off the market: After three patients in a clinical study developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML, a serious brain infection), the FDA halted trials of the multiple sclerosis drug until the company could prove that no additional cases of PML had occurred.

Expiration date: Biogen-Idec withdrew Tysabri from the worldwide market in 2005. In 2006 it was allowed back on the market with a risk-minimization program with mandatory patient registration and follow-up.

NeutroSpec

What it is: NeutroSpec is an antibody labeled with a radioactive marker that was used to diagnose appendicitis in patients that show some but not all of the clinical signs of appendicitis.

Why it was taken off the market: While the agent was on the market, 17 patients who received NeutroSpec experienced life-threatening side effects soon after it was injected, including shortness of breath, low blood pressure, and cardiac and pulmonary arrest. Two patients died. About 11,000 patients received NeutroSpec while it was on the market.

Expiration date: Palatin Technologies withdrew NeutroSpec from the U.S. market in 2005.

Cylert

What it is: Cylert is a drug used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Why it was taken off the market: The FDA learned of 13 reports of liver failure leading to liver transplant or death. The number of cases reported was small, but patients taking the drug had a liver failure rate of 10-25 times the rate of liver failure in the general population.

Expiration date: Abbott withdrew Cylert from the U.S. market in 2005.

Permax

What it is: Permax is a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease.

Why it was taken off the market: Two studies confirmed previous findings that Permax is associated with increased chance of blood backflow to aortic valves of the heart. Symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue and heart palpitations. In 2006, about 12,000 patients received prescriptions in the US.

Expiration date: In 2007, Valeant Pharmaceuticals voluntarily withdrew Permax from the U.S. market. Two other companies, Par and Teva, withdrew generic versions.

Baycol

What it is: Baycol is a cholesterol-lowering drug.

Why it was taken off the market: Reports of sometimes fatal rhabdomyolysis—a severe muscle condition. All statins cause rare cases of rhabdomyolysis, but Baycol patients experienced it at a significantly higher rate than patients on other statins. The FDA received reports of 31 deaths related to Baycol.

Expiration date: Bayer withdrew Baycol from the U.S. market in 2001.

Palladone

What it is: Palladone is a narcotic painkiller in a slow-release capsule.

Why it was taken off the market: Severe side effects were reported when Palladone was taken with alcohol. Alcohol use caused high levels of the drug in the body, with potentially fatal effects such as the depression or halting of breathing and coma.

Expiration date: Purdue Pharma withdrew Palladone from the U.S. market in 2005.

 

Well, we knew they were unethical, but this is pretty bad...

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Did CDC hype TB case as a fund-raising ploy? | ajc.com

Did CDC hype TB case as a fund-raising ploy?
Agency denies it, but critics say Andrew Speaker was pawn in publicity grab

By ALISON YOUNG / Staff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/13/08

Months before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker the unwitting poster boy for drug-resistant tuberculosis, the agency and its advisers discussed a strategy to get more funding by publicizing the deadly strain of the disease, records show.

Frustrated that money for combating TB had dwindled as Congress favored newer threats from bioterrorism and bird flu, advisers suggested taking "drastic actions," according to December 2006 meeting minutes from the federal Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis. The council is based at the CDC in Atlanta.

One strategy centered on publicizing the urgency of combating XDR TB — a rare, new form of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. "The implications of XDR TB for TB control in the United States should be compiled and communicated as a strong advocacy tool to increase the TB investment," the minutes state.

Five months later, CDC's lab diagnosed Speaker as having XDR TB, and the agency issued a federal isolation order — its first in more than 40 years — and held a national press conference about how he possibly spread the disease aboard international flights.

The actions were in stark contrast to the private way the agency dealt with 100 other TB cases involving airline travelers, both before Speaker and after, including an incident last month when a severely ill drug-resistant TB patient flew from India to Chicago.

"It's unheard of to have that level of public notice, " said Dr. Michael Iseman, a national TB expert and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, where he has been one of Speaker's doctors. "I don't think it was constructive."

The handling of the Speaker case was so unusual that it has raised questions among other TB experts, including whether CDC publicized Speaker's case in a quest for more money.

CDC officials are adamant that the XDR funding strategy played no role in how they handled Speaker's case. The press conference was needed so CDC could quickly track down and test passengers, said Dr. Ken Castro, director of CDC's TB division.

CDC Media Relations Director Glen Nowak said he pushed for the press conference because of a belief in transparency and the likelihoo of significant media interest in the isolation order and an XDR TB case.

CDC Director Julie Gerberding's May 29 press conference announced that a man with XDR TB was being held in a hospital under a rare federal isolation order. She said the agency was notifying all passengers who flew with him on two international flights so they could get TB tests.

A media storm erupted as details emerged about the Atlanta lawyer's travel for his Greek wedding — despite being told not to fly — and the couple's frantic honeymoon run from health authorities, evading no-fly lists and border control checkpoints as they tried to get back to the U.S. for specialized treatment.

Despite the public perception of Speaker as a modern-day Typhoid Mary, tests at a Denver hospital later showed he didn't have the XDR TB that CDC cited in its press conference, but a more treatable form of drug-resistant TB. Nobody appears to have caught TB from Speaker, tests of more than 250 airline passengers show.

Tuberculosis experts say the Speaker case — because of its high profile — gave TB its biggest publicity boost in decades and helped secure rare funding increases for combating the disease.

"It was almost as if some prophecy was being fulfilled, " Dr. Michael Fleenor, chairman of the federal TB advisory council, which five months earlier had sent a blunt letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt warning that "our nation is facing an imminent airborne biological threat" from XDR TB.

The ability of CDC and local health officials to protect the U.S. "is slipping beyond recovery, " the letter said. That warning, like many before them, did nothing to increase funding.

Then Andrew Speaker hit the news.

'Fortuitous' case

After years of flat funding, the 2008 federal budget includes $140.4 million — a 4 percent increase — to combat TB in the U.S. It would have been a 9 percent increase if President Bush hadn't vetoed the Labor/HHS funding bill and required cuts.

CDC officials say bills seeking increased funding for TB aren't unusual and that agency officials have spoken out about XDR TB for years. They noted that Gerberding testified before Congress about XDR TB last March, two months before the agency had even heard of Speaker.

TB advocates and the CDC agree that Speaker gave funding legislation the traction it previously lacked. The Speaker case was "fortuitous," said Fleenor.

Dr. Alan Bloch, an expert in the airborne transmission of TB and measles, said he's wondered since last summer: "Was there a hidden agenda to use Andrew Speaker's case to get more money for TB control?"

Bloch, who spent 25 years at CDC before he retired in 2005, said the agency's response to Speaker seemed overblown, given that test results known to health officials and Speaker's lack of symptoms made him unlikely to spread the disease.

Bloch conducted the first national survey of drug-resistant TB and designed the expanded TB surveillance system that CDC used to identify the 49 XDR TB cases in the U.S. from 1993-2006.

Watching Gerberding's televised press conference in May, when she announced the CDC had issued the first federal isolation order since a 1963 case of suspected smallpox, Bloch said he assumed "this patient must be extremely contagious.''

"I had visions of a non-compliant patient who was the tuberculosis equivalent of TyphoidMary, who was highly infectious. When I found out this patient did not meet other criteria for being a very infectious case, I was puzzled."

The CDC has refused for nearly seven months to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act about any role the agency's XDR TB funding strategy played in its handling of the Speaker case.

CDC spokesman Nowak called any suggestion of a money motive "a slap in the face" to agency staff who work to protect the public. "The thought that we would have done all this to get publicity is laughable," he said.

Castro, the CDC TB division director, said the agency's actions were justified, because there was no way to know whether Speaker's disease status had worsened after he left Atlanta against the instructions of health officials.

Although Speaker voluntarily drove himself to meet CDC scientists on returning to the U.S., Castro said the isolation order was necessary, because Speaker had previously disobeyed health officials.

Low-risk patient

During a meeting last summer, members of the federal TB advisory council — which urged using XDR TB to help get more money — questioned CDC's approach, including the tracking and testing of passengers on the plane with Speaker.

"There was a discussion of should they have done anything, " Dr. William Burman, a member of the advisory council, said in a recent interview. "From the beginning, Andrew Speaker was of very low risk. Everyone knew that. CDC knew that."

Burman said CDC staff told the advisers Speaker's case met criteria for an investigation because the length of the trans-Atlantic flights made transmission possible and because he had XDR TB, which is very difficult to treat.

"But everyone involved knew the likelihood of transmission was very, very low, " said Burman, who is medical director of the infectious diseases clinic at Denver Public Health.

Burman says he suspects CDC would have faced criticism had it not held a press conference.

Dr. Lee Reichman, executive director of the Global Tuberculosis Institute at the New Jersey Medical School and a liaison on the advisory council, agreed. "They were damned if they did and damned if they don't, " he said.

Iseman, the Colorado TB expert who has treated Speaker, questioned the public health need to go public in a TB airline investigation in which officials can get manifests naming the other passengers and contact them privately.

"Andrew Speaker became the face of XDR TB — although he didn't have it, " Iseman said. "I would venture to say that Andrew Speaker and his family have had substantial, if not irreparable, trauma."

Iseman and other TB experts said the world of medicine is acutely aware of how HIV and breast cancer have become well-funded through aggressive advocacy and putting faces to the diseases.

Of CDC's investigations of 100 TB patients who in the past 18 months boarded planes — including five patients who flew with multidrug resistant TB — the only press conference the agency has held was in the Speaker case. Then again, Speaker was the only one believed to have XDR TB.

Tests at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, the renowned TB hospital which treated Speaker, later found he didn't have XDR TB, but a more treatable multidrug resistant TB, or MDR TB.

At a July 3 press conference announcing Speaker's new diagnosis, CDC officials said the agency would have responded the same way if they'd known he had MDR TB.

While no press conference has been held in the latest case of an airline passenger traveling with MDR TB, CDC officials say that's because they had an easier time getting the list of other passengers on the Chicago-bound plane with the woman than it had in the Speaker case.

Baseline TB tests must be given within eight weeks of possible exposure.

Foreign carriers and outbound flights make tracing potentially exposed passengers more difficult, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

By the time the CDC was able to request the Air France list from Speaker's flight, two weeks had passed, and the airline took nearly a week to produce the names. The agency was able to secure the list from the woman's American Airlines flight in 14 hours.

That fact has allowed the CDC to privately track down the 44 passengers seated nearest to the woman on the Dec. 13 flight from New Delhi, India, officials said.

The woman, who was coughing on the flight, was so ill with TB she went to an emergency room a few days after arriving home in California.

In contrast, Speaker never coughed or had any TB symptoms; the disease was only diagnosed because it showed up on a chest X-ray after he suffered an unrelated injury. Still, all of the passengers on his two trans-Atlantic flights were advised to seek tests.

Castro said every TB case is different. If faced with the same circumstances as the Speaker case again, Castro said he'd handle it the same way, including going public.

"In this particular case, " he said, "we had no other choice."

TB: AT ISSUE

• Tuberculosis is a disease usually of the lungs caused by bacteria. It is spread through the air when a person with an active form of the disease coughs or sneezes.

• In the United States, there are about 14,000 new cases of TB each year and about 650 deaths. About 125 cases each year involve multidrug resistant TB, meaning the bacteria can't be killed by antibiotics commonly used to treat the disease.

• Scientists are particularly concerned about the emergence of new TB strains that respond to even fewer — or no — drugs. There have been 49 documented cases of these extensively drug resistant TB (XDR TB) cases in the U.S. from 1993-2006.

• Worldwide, 9 million people each year become sick with TB, and there are almost 2 million TB deaths.

Source: CDC, World Health Organization

COMPARISON OF TWO TB CASES

• MAY 2007

The patient: 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer

Diagnosis: Multidrug resistant TB*

Outward symptoms: None

Flights of concern: Atlanta to Paris; Prague to Montreal

CDC alert: Press conference advising all passengers be tested.

Isolation order: Yes, federal

• DECEMBER 2007

The patient: California woman

Diagnosis: Multidrug resistant TB

Outward symptoms: Severely ill, coughing

Flight of concern: New Delhi, India to Chicago

CDC alert: Private notification of 44 passengers seated closest to patient. No press conference.

Isolation order: Yes, local

* CDC initially announced a diagnosis of extensively drug resistant TB, but tests later showed he only had MDR TB (multidrug resistant TB).

 

Babies don't need fluoride. In fact, if they ingest it, they can suffer permanent damage to their teeth. That's why you should brush very young kids' teeth with Weleda (http://shop.weleda.com/item_detail.aspx?ItemCode=9802) or a similar brand, if you brush them at all. For kids under two years old, ask your doctor, who will probably tell you that wiping the teeth with a damp cloth is good enough.

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Fluorosis – Too Much of a Good Thing

FLUOROSIS
We’ve all heard of the mighty fluoride building stronger, more cavity-resistant enamel for young and old teeth alike. But like most good things, too much is bad -- and that goes for fluoride, too.

Excessive fluoride can cause fluorosis, a condition caused by ingesting more fluoride than the body needs. It can occur as skeletal fluorosis, where bones become weak and brittle, or dental fluorosis, where a child’s permanent tooth comes out discolored.

Spot the Difference

Dental fluorosis most commonly affects children during the time when their teeth and gums are still developing (usually before six or seven years of age), but only appears when the affected teeth have erupted.

Chalky white lines or opaque white spots and patches appear -- an indication of a mild form of fluorosis, the type that occurs among the majority of children with this condition in the US. Extreme cases turn the enamel yellow or brown, or worse, can cause a pitted tooth surface. This discoloration is also called enamel mottling.

Clear Cause and Effect

Because fluoride is so easily available, it’s not hard to consume too much of it, specifically among children. Sources of fluoride may include:

- Tap water (city water)
- Toothpaste and mouth rinse
- Supplements such as drops, tablets and vitamins
- Certain foods like baby formula, infant food and some beverages manufactured in cities with fluoridated water

Stopping Tooth Spotting

Easy as it may be to over-fluoridate, it’s just as easy to prevent fluorosis:

- Use unfluoridated baby tooth cleanser for kids younger than 2 years -aask your dentist for a recommendation

- Train your child with good brushing and rinsing habits to minimize swallowing toothpaste

- When using fluoridated toothpaste, make sure to place only a drop (as tiny as a green pea) for kids up to eight years of age

- Before giving children additional fluoride supplements or dental treatments, account for all sources of fluoride they may be getting

- Take care in using fluoridated water with your baby’s formula until after he or she is a year old, but do consult with your physician or pediatrician

Damage Control

Prevention is indeed better than cure, especially with fluorosis -- the damage it can cause is permanent.

As Melanie Phillips points out below, Dr. Wakefield has never said that the MMR vaccine causes all cases of autism, merely that it could be the trigger for some of them. The UK government is desperate to restore faith in their government-mandated trivalent vaccine. At least in the US we have the choice to get measles, mumps, and rubella shots separately (or with a medical exemption, not at all).

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The Spectator

The Wakefield Witch-Hunt

March 21, 2008

A couple of days ago, yet another story appeared claiming that fresh research had shown that there was no linkbetween the MMR vaccination and autism. This new research was said to have shown that, contrary to the claims made by Dr Andrew Wakefield, the surgeon at the centre of the MMR scare, there was no relationship between gut problems and autism, the core of his concerns. It also claimed that the discovery furthermore damaged the related theory that a gluten-free diet could help children with autism.

Dr Hilary Cass, from Great Ormond Street, said: ‘It is very distressing to have a diagnosis of autism, a lifelong condition.Many families are driven to try out interventions which currently have no scientific basis. For example, advocates of the leaky gut hypothesis offer children a casein and gluten-free diet which as yet lacks an evidence base.’

This particular observation is a telling indication that this study bears little relation to reality. For there are countless families whose autistic children’s suffering from gut problems has only been eased, and their autistic symptoms improved, by the introduction of precisely such a diet. ‘No evidence base’? Tell that to those families. It is their lived experience.

Second, despite the way this was presented in the media this is not a new piece of research at all. It is instead a recycled version of a study by Baird G. et al, published in the Archive of Diseases in Childhood on February 5 and reported in the press around that time. The study drew the following response from Andrew Wakefield:

…The study is severely limited by case definition in the context of the crucial ‘possible enterocolitis’ group. For inclusion in this group they required the presence of two or more of the following five current gastrointestinal symptoms:

• current persistent diarrhea (defined as watery/loose stools three or more times per day >14 days),
• current persistent vomiting (occurring at least once per day, or more than five times per week),
• current weight loss,
• current persistent abdominal pain (3 or more episodes [frequency not specified by authors] severe enough to interfere with activity);
• current blood in stool;

 

plus:

• past persistent diarrhea >14 days’ duration, and excluding current constipation.

 

We have over the last 10 years evaluated several thousand children on the autistic spectrum who have significant gastrointestinal symptoms. Upper and lower endoscopy and surgical histology have identified mucosal inflammation in excess of 80% of these children. Almost none of these children with biopsy-proven enterocolitis would fit the criteria set out above. Firstly, these children rarely have vomiting, current weight loss (as opposed to failure to gain weight in an age-appropriate manner), or passage of blood per rectum. The requirement is thus narrowed to a child having two of two relevant symptoms – current persistent diarrhea and current abdominal pain according to their criteria, plus a past history of persistent diarrhea excluding current constipation.

The requirement for the current presence of these symptoms, for 14 or more days continuously, shows a singular lack of understanding of the episodic, fluctuating, and alternating (e.g. diarrhea/constipation) symptom profile experienced by these children. In our experience, ASD children with histologic enterocolitis typically have 1 to 2 unformed stools per day that are very malodorous and usually contain a variety of undigested foodstuffs. This pattern alternates with that of “constipation” in which the unformed stool is passed after many days of no bowel movements at all, and with excessive straining. This group is entirely overlooked by the arbitrary criteria set forth in their paper. With respect to diarrhea and constipation, a detailed discussion of stool pattern in these children is available¹ which further highlights the shortcomings of the above criteria. Moreover, the interpretation of pain as a symptom in non-verbal children, as it often manifests as self injury, aggressive outbursts, sleep disturbances, and abnormal posturing, is notoriously difficult. This interpretation requires an insight based upon the correlation of symptoms, histological findings, and response of symptoms to anti-inflammatory treatment. There is no evidence in the Baird et al. paper that these crucial factors were taken into account. This study’s inappropriate symptom criteria would explain the discordance with other reports that have revealed a high prevalence of significant gastrointestinal symptoms in general autism populations^2,3.

It is surprising that Dr Peter Sullivan, a co-author on the paper, who presumably provided the above gastroenterological criteria, was not aware of the aforementioned limitations. In his role as a Defendant’s expert in the UK MMR litigation, he will have had access to the clinical records of autistic children with the relevant intestinal symptoms and biopsy-proven intestinal inflammation.

We suggest that the authors might wish to reflect on the ethical implications of setting the bar too high for the investigation of such children by ileo-colonoscopy, with the attendant risk of missing symptomatic, treatable inflammation.

Since the relevant MMR/autism children are considered to be those with regression and significant gastrointestinal symptoms, the appropriate stratification for between-group analyses of measles virus antibody levels has not been conducted; therefore the paper is difficult to interpret, adding little if anything to the issue of causation. Moreover, it is a major error to have presumed that peripheral blood mononuclear cells are a valid ‘proxy’ for gut mucosal lymphoid tissues when searching for persistent viral genetic material.

A further major problem in this study is the number of children who dropped out or who were unable to provide adequate blood samples. We know nothing about either the 735 children who were lost at stage two, or the 100 children for whom blood samples were not available. At the very least, we should be told whether the children who dropped out were likely to be representative of those who stayed in, with regard to the key issues of interest.

For reasons that will emerge in the near future, it would be of interest to know whether siblings of autistic children were included in either of the two control groups. This information is not provided.

As a general observation, this paper contributes nothing to the issue of causation, one way or another. Case definition alone is likely to have obscured the relevant group of autistic children. The study tells us nothing about what actually happened to the children at the time of exposure. We are increasingly persuaded that measuring things in blood many years down the line tells us very little about the initiating events in what is, in effect, a static (non-progressive) encephalopathy unlike, for example, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, which is a progressive measles encephalopathy. The gut is a different matter, and analysis of mucosal tissues has been very informative, since here, in the relevant children, active ongoing, possibly progressive [AV1]⁴, inflammation has been identified.

None of Wakefield’s pointers to the irrelevance of or inadequacies in the Baird research was included in the news stories. Nor do these stories refer to other research studies which show a higher rate of gastro-intestinal problems among children with autistic-spectrum symptoms. The recycling of the Baird study was but the latest in a steady drip-feed of such items which appear to be part of a concerted campaign to ensure that the General Medical Council hearing into the conduct of Wakefield’s research, which is shortly due to resume, takes place in as prejudiced an atmosphere as possible. No stone is being left unturned by the medico-political establishment and its creatures in the media to ensure that this doctor is destroyed.

As I have repeatedly said, I have no idea whether Wakefield is correct or not in his concerns about the possible adverse effects of the MMR vaccine on a small sub-set of vaccinated children. Nor do I know whether any of the charges being levelled against him at the GMC has any legs. But I do believe — as I wrote in my series of articles on the subject for the Daily Mail in 2003 here, here and here — that many of the statements made by the Department of Health and medical establishment about the ‘proof’ of the vaccine’s unchallengeable safety are deeply misleading. And I also believe, having spoken to many parents of such children, that their experiences simply cannot be dismissed as they have been by the medical establishment. No-one has ever suggested that the MMR vaccine causes all or most of the incidence of autism. If Wakefield is correct, it is only a small proportion of children whose immune systems may be unable to cope, for whatever reason, which makes them particularly vulnerable to such ill-effects. And contrary to the message being pumped out by the medical establishment that the vaccine has been proved to be safe — by studies which are all either flawed, inadequate or irrelevant — the fairest and most accurate thing to say is that the jury is still out.

One of the most reprehensible weapons being wielded in the witch-hunt against Wakefield is the claim that anyone who gives any credence whatever to his concerns is responsible for the incidence of measles amongst children whose parents are as a result too frightened to give them the MMR vaccination. There are two obvious points to make in response to this piece of moral blackmail: 1) the whole panic could have been avoided by offering single measles, mumps and rubella jabs rather than the triple MMR, and 2) it is surely just as important as avoiding cases of measles mumps and rubella to avoid causing the kind of catastrophic damage to the brain and gut displayed by the children at the heart of this controversy.

And there is a further and quite appalling point to note. This whole saga started because parents of such children found that their family doctors were dismissing out of hand their children’s gut and brain problems, accordingly refusing to alleviate their suffering. Now, as a direct result of the animosity towards Wakefield that has been whipped up — and the fear that any doctor who suggests he might be right will similarly find him or herself at the receiving end of the medical establishment’s fist — children exhibiting this combination of gut and brain damage are finding it difficult to obtain treatment.

Another letter to the Archive of Diseases in Childhood from John Stone, the parent of an autistic child, makes terrifying and distressing reading:

In this regard it is worth noting the recent warning of the National Autistic Society (NAS):

‘The National Autistic Society is keenly aware of the concerns of parents surrounding suggested links between autism and the MMR vaccine. The charity is concerned that the GMC hearing, and surrounding media coverage, will create further confusion and make it even more difficult for parents to access appropriate medical advice for their children. It is particularly important that this case is not allowed to increase the lack of sympathy that some parents of children with autism have encountered from health professionals, particularly on suspected gut and bowel problems. Parents have reported to the NAS that in some cases their concerns have been dismissed as hysteria following previous publicity around the MMR vaccine. It is crucial that health professionals listen to parents' concerns and respect their views as the experts on their individual children…’

The NAS warning relates to the GMC hearing involving doctors Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch which is set to resume on 25 March approaching. I do not think it is being unduly cynical to query the publication of this study at the present time as a media event, bearing in mind that it seems to have been carried out five or six years ago. Moreover, the study has once again been promoted as refuting the Wakefield hypothesis when it in fact tests for a possibility that had not been proposed. Meanwhile, the plight of autistic children with gastro- intestinal symptoms is excluded both from the study and public attention, as if they did not exist. The NAS statement warned of ‘creating further confusion’ and this is precisely what this study and its media exposure has done.

As the resumption of the GMC hearing draws nearer, one has to ask whether this will serve the cause of truth and justice and the relief of suffering — or is it instead merely a show trial which will bring about the precise opposite?

Check out this NYT article on Monsanto's lobbying group, "AFACT," which pretends to represent farmers and is pushing REALLY HARD to get the government to ban milk labels letting you know whether cows have been treated with rBGH. As it turns out, consumers overwhelmingly choose milk from non-hormone-treated cows, and Monsanto stands to lose big bucks because its cow-abusing hormone is less and less popular.

It's a warning to those readers who think "industry group" means "industry group," rather than "lobbying group paid by megachemical company." Write to your government representatives and let them know you see through Monsanto's charade.

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Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label - New York Times

Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label

By ANDREW MARTIN

IT may be the last stand of Posilac.

A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.

The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.

Dairy farmers are indeed part of the organization. But Afact was organized in part by Monsanto and a Colorado consultant who lists Monsanto as a client.

Afact has also received help from Osborn & Barr, a marketing firm whose founders include a former Monsanto executive. The firm received a contract in 2006 to help with the Posilac campaign.

Lori Hoag, a spokeswoman for the dairy unit of Monsanto, said her company did provide financial support to Afact. But Ms. Hoag asserted that the group is led by farmers, not Monsanto.

“They make all the governing decisions for their organization,” she said. “Monsanto has nothing to do with that.”

Afact has come together as a growing number of consumers are choosing milk that comes from cows that are not treated with the artificial growth hormone. Even though the Food and Drug Administration has declared the synthetic hormone safe, many other countries have refused to approve it, and there is lingering concern among many consumers about its impact on health and the welfare of cows.

The marketplace has responded, and now everyone from Whole Foods Market to Wal-Mart Stores sells milk that is labeled as coming from cows not treated with the hormone. Some dairy industry veterans say it’s only a matter of time before nearly all of the milk supply comes from cows that weren’t treated with Posilac. According to Monsanto, about a third of the dairy cows in the United States are in herds where Posilac is used.

And the trend might not stop with milk. Kraft is planning to sell cheese labeled as having come from untreated cows.

But consumer demand for more natural products has conflicted with some dairy farmers’ desire to use the artificial hormone to bolster production and bottom lines, and it has certainly interfered with Monsanto’s business plan for Posilac.

Cows typically produce an extra gallon a day when they are treated with Posilac. That can translate into serious money for dairy farmers at a time when prices are near record highs.

So Afact has embarked on a counteroffensive that includes meeting with retailers and pushing efforts by state legislators and state agriculture commissioners to pass laws to ban or restrict labels that indicate milk comes from untreated cows.

Last fall in Pennsylvania, Dennis Wolff, the agriculture secretary, tried to ban milk that was labeled as free of the synthetic hormone because, he said, consumers were confused. Mr. Wolff’s office acknowledged that it had no consumer research to back up his claim, and he eventually had to scale back his plans when consumer groups and Gov. Edward G. Rendell balked.

Instead, the state tightened up the language on milk labels to make sure it was more accurate.

But Posilac’s supporters haven’t given up.

In recent months, labeling changes have been floated in New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, Missouri and Vermont, according to Michael Hansen, who has tracked the issue as a senior scientist for Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.

A Consumer Reports survey last summer found that 88 percent of consumers believed that milk from cows not treated with synthetic hormones should be allowed to be labeled as such.

Afact says it believes that such “absence” labels can be misleading and imply that milk from cows treated with hormones is inferior. In fact, the F.D.A. maintains that there is no significant difference between milk from cows that are treated and from those that are not.

Afact also argues that some consumers are paying a premium for milk that doesn’t include artificial hormones.

“We know it’s a technology that makes us money and is safe for our cows,” said Carrol Campbell, a Kansas dairy farmer who is co-chairman of Afact. Mr. Campbell said he became involved in the issue because his cooperative called him and asked him to stop using Posilac; instead, he found a new cooperative.

Ms. Hoag of Monsanto said her company was not actively pushing changes in milk labeling laws.

Advocates for Posilac, including Monsanto, have been complaining for years about milk labeled as free of artificial bovine growth hormone. In September 2006, Kevin Holloway, president of the Monsanto dairy unit, gave a speech in which he said the “fundamental issue” was dairy farmers’ ability to choose the best technology. “Dairy farmer choice to use a variety of F.D.A.-approved technologies is at risk,” he said.

That same year, the Monsanto dairy unit hired Osborn & Barr to handle, among other things, the Posilac brand, according to an article in the St. Louis Business Journal.

In 2007, Monsanto and several dairy organizations met by phone to “lay the groundwork” for a grass-roots organization, according to an online dairy industry newsletter.

Afact was created in the fall of 2007. In addition to receiving money from Monsanto, Afact has received help with its Web site from Osborn & Barr, said Monty G. Miller, a Colorado consultant who was hired to organize the group.

Afact believes that the push for milk from untreated cows is being driven by advocates like Consumers Union and PETA, “who make a profit, living and business by striking fear in citizens,” Mr. Miller said in an e-mail message.

The group also believes it will be hard for food retailers to “move away from the rBST-free stance without legislation and government policy,” according to an Afact presentation to dairy farmers in January.

In the presentation, Afact also listed “integrity,” “honesty” and “transparent” as “words we wish to embody.”

They could start by being more straightforward about who is behind Afact.

Note to parents: The government cannot force you to adhere to the CDC's vaccine schedule. If your children are all caught up by the time they enter school, you will not have any trouble with the authorities. If you choose not to vaccinate at all (or to reduce the vaccinations required by your state for entry into school), you can get a religious or medical exemption. Please consider these options and do not be cowed by the CDC's political agenda and big talk. You have the power to make life better and safer for your children.

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Give us answers on vaccines | ajc.com

Give us answers on vaccines

By DAVID KIRBY
Published on: 03/20/08

By now, many parents in America have heard of the Hannah Poling court case. They know the government has acknowledged that vaccines contributed to autism in at least one little girl from Georgia. Understandably, they are worried, and they want answers.

But instead of frank talk from leading health officials, their concerns are being met with stonewalling, denial and misinformation.

By refusing to address what really happened to Hannah — by commanding parents to settle down and adhere to the nation's rigid immunization regime — officials will only drive people away from vaccines in anxiety-ridden droves.

But what if we could test children for underlying conditions that might increase their risk of vaccine injury and autism? And what if we allowed those at risk to slightly delay and spread out their shots?

It's a difficult, but not impossible, proposition. And I believe doing so would reduce the rate of autism, seizure disorders and even asthma in some children. And we would boost vaccination rates by restoring faith in the nation's teetering immunization program.

Why do I say this? New documents have surfaced in the Poling case that shine more light on how Hannah's vaccine injury led to autism.

A government document filed in the case last November conceded that Hannah's vaccines had aggravated an underlying disorder of the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the tiny powerhouses within each cell that convert food and oxygen into energy. Government officials acknowledged that Hannah's disorder led to a condition known as low cellular energy metabolism, which was aggravated by vaccines and ultimately led to an autism diagnosis.

It was a tantalizing admission but did little to explain just how the vaccines had aggravated the disorder or caused autism.

But on Feb. 21, the U.S. government made a second, unpublicized concession in the case. In addition to triggering autism, officials now admitted, Hannah's vaccines had also led to her "seizure disorder," or epilepsy.

And there was more. The November document claimed that Hannah had a mitochondrial "disorder." But by February, this was modulated to a mere mitochondrial "dysfunction."

That's because Hannah's underlying condition was asymptomatic and most likely environmentally acquired. It was not some rare, grave, inherited disease that would have progressed to autism anyway, as many officials contend.

The November report said Hannah's vaccine reaction had "manifested" as early-onset brain disease, with "features of autism spectrum disorder."

But the February report is more blunt. It says that Hannah's vaccines "caused" her "autistic" brain disease.

But the real bombshell was this: Hannah's autism was caused by vaccine-induced fever and overstimulation of her immune system, according to court documents. Her low cellular energy and reduced metabolic reserves, due to mitochondrial dysfunction, were overstressed by the contents of nine vaccines (including mercury) at once.

The Cleveland Clinic defines low cellular energy metabolism disorder this way: "The process of converting food and oxygen (fuel) into energy requires hundreds of chemical reactions, and each chemical reaction must run almost perfectly in order to have a continuous supply of energy. When one or more components of these chemical reactions does not run perfectly, there is an energy crisis, and the cells cannot function normally. As a result, the incompletely burned food might accumulate as poison inside the body."

The cause of Hannah's mitochondrial dysfunction is up for debate, though ample evidence exists to implicate heavy metals in air, water, food and vaccines as possible suspects. But the government has acknowledged that low cellular energy can increase the risk of immune system overdrive, and regression into autism.

Now, one would think that investigating — and preventing — such vaccine-induced overstimulation in susceptible children would be a top priority of health officials. But it is not.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has vowed to "adamantly" enforce the one-size-fits-all vaccine schedule, no matter what happened to Hannah and other kids like her.

Frantic parents, desperate for answers, were admonished by Gerberding to "set aside this very isolated, unusual situation" in so-called Vaccine Court, even though "the court apparently made the decision that it is fair to say that vaccinations may have been one of the precipitators."

Gerberding was either grossly misinformed, or lying.

To begin with, this "decision" was not made by the court at all, but by medical personnel working for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Gerberding's boss.

More important, the Poling case is neither isolated nor unusual. At least 12 other autism-related claims have been paid out in Vaccine Court to date, and perhaps hundreds more cases like Hannah's are pending.

Most striking is how typical Hannah's cellular dysfunction may be among children with autism. While extremely rare in the general population, at two per 10,000 people, it seems unusually common in autism — with estimates up to 2,000 per 10,000.

Many opinion leaders are calling on the government to release all relevant documents leading to the Poling concessions. The family has waived all claims to privacy, and the public has a right to know.

For now, all we have is the CDC Web site, which says that "simultaneous vaccination with multiple vaccines has no adverse effect on the normal childhood immune system."

But did Hannah have a "normal" immune system? Are other kids out there also metabolically primed for overstimulation from too many shots at once? Should their vaccines be spread out?

Instead of answers, we get adamant silence. This is not a matter of national security. It's a national emergency. Millions of parents are anxiously waiting for their government to tell them what the hell is going on.

... and they don't leach phthalates or Bisphenol A, and they don't persist in our environment forever. Choose wood over plastic in your kitchen.

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Bacteria on Cutting Boards

Cutting boards used to prepare raw meat can be used to prepare salad or other uncooked food, transferring disease- causing bacteria and other agents from the meat to the salad. Wooden cutting boards have been widely used for centuries, while boards made from various polymers have been available since the early 1970s. Glass cutting boards are a third option to consumers. Research has shown that when bacteria were inoculated on both wooden and polymer boards, bacterial recoveries from wooden boards generally were less than those from plastic boards, regardless of new or used status (Ak et al., 1994a). These authors found no differences between wood types (basswood, birch, maple, maple plus walnut). Cleaning with hot water and detergents was found to be effective in removing bacteria, regardless of the species, wood type, or whether the wood was new or used (Ak et al., 1994b).

Ak, N. O., D. O. Cliver and C. W. Kaspar. 1994a. Cutting boards
of plastic and wood contaminated experimentally with
bacteria. J. Food Protect. 57:16-22.
Ak, N. O., D. O. Cliver and C. W. Kaspar. 1994b.
Decontamination of plastic and wood cutting boards for
kitchen use. J. Food Protect. 57:23-30.

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Pediatrics -- P3Rs for Parikh, 121 $3$ 621-622

Parents get angry when they see the following numbers listed on the internet. These numbers have been out there for everyone to read for years. They are mathamatical facts backed by references. The way to quell parental fears would be for someone like Dr. Parikh to address these numbers. Using propaganda is not going to work and only makes the situation worse.

0.5 parts per billion (ppb) mercury = Kills human neuroblastoma cells (Parran et al., Toxicol Sci 2005; 86: 132-140).

2 ppb mercury = U.S. EPA limit for drinking water http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html#mcls

20 ppb mercury = Neurite membrane structure destroyed (Leong et al., Neuroreport 2001; 12: 733-37).

200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste. http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/mercury/regs.htm#hazwaste

25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in the Hepatitis B vaccine, administered at birth in the U.S., from 1990-2001.

50,000 ppb Mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose DTaP and Haemophilus B vaccine vials, administered 4 times each in the 1990's to children at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age. Current "preservative" level mercury in multi-dose flu (94% of supply), meningococcal and tetanus (7 and older) vaccines. This can be confirmed by simply analyzing the multi- dose vials.

The Thoughtful House in Austin, Texas, treats autistic children with biomedical interventions, rather than writing them off as psychologically damaged. A local Fox affiliate provides more information, including a video news clip (click the link below).

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MyFox Austin | Austin's 'Thoughtful House' Helping Families with Autistic Kids

Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability. Some families of autistic kids often feel shut out and isolated with no where to turn. As FOX 7's Loriana Hernandez reports, the 'Thoughtful House' in Austin is giving families of autistic children from all over the world the support they need.

So the EPA convenes a panel about toxic fire retardant Deca, and then cans the one person on it who has expressed a negative view of this toxic product. The EPA thinks it's just fine, though, to keep plenty of people who are on Big Chem's payroll on the panel.

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EPA Axes Panel Chair at Request of Chemical Industry Lobbyists | Environmental Working Group

Published on Environmental Working Group (http://www.ewg.org)

EPA Axes Panel Chair at Request of Chemical Industry Lobbyists

Published February 29, 2008

EPA Axes Panel Chair at Request of Chemical Industry Lobbyists

At the request of a chemical industry lobbyist, the Environmental Protection Agency removed the chair of an expert peer review panel charged with setting safe exposure levels for a toxic fire retardant that contaminates human blood and breast milk, according to documents obtained by Environmental Working Group (EWG). After doing the industry’s bidding, EPA then retroactively stripped all of the chair’s comments from the panel’s published report and republished the altered document.

In a letter to the EPA, a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council argued that the panel chair, Dr. Deborah Rice of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, should be thrown off the panel because she exhibited an “appearance of bias” when she represented her agency's position in favor of restricting uses of Deca in her testimony before the Maine legislature. EPA acquiesced and removed Dr. Rice from the panel. The Agency first tried to cover up its actions by stripping any mention of Dr. Rice and all of her comments from the original published review document, and reposting the altered document on the web with no indication that any changes had been made. Months later they issued a disclaimer that Dr. Rice had been removed for a “perception of a potential conflict of interest.” The omission of the chair’s comments from the review document could result in a significantly weaker safety standard for the chemical, which EPA intends to propose at the end of March 2008.

EPA’s sacking of Dr. Rice reveals a dangerous double standard where scientists and experts working for state or federal health agencies can be removed from EPA advisory panels simply because they express the views of their agency in public as a part of their job responsibilities. Meanwhile, numerous scientists with direct financial ties to the manufacturers of chemicals under review, or with publications and public statements touting the safety of chemicals they are evaluating, remain as active participants on these panels.

Download the documents as PDF files below, or see all documents and full timeline of EPA actions.

• Chemical industry request to remove Dr. Rice from the panel, 5/3/07 [PDF]
• EPA redacted Dr. Rice's comments (highlighted by EWG) [PDF]

Deca is a developmental neurotoxin used in electronics and other consumer products, from a family of fire retardants known as PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers). The targeted expert, Dr. Deborah Rice, was the panel member most knowledgeable about Deca risks. A retired EPA scientist and life-long public servant, Dr. Rice co-authored an important study on Deca toxicity to the brain and nervous system during development. She also spearheaded a regulatory review mandated by Maine law, to investigate the feasibility of replacing Deca with less toxic chemicals. Her transgression, according to the industry complaint, was that in testimony before the Maine legislature, Dr. Rice displayed an “appearance of bias” simply by stating her agency’s position in support of state legislation to restrict Deca.

EPA Stacks Panels With Industry-Biased Scientists

EPA has institutionalized the practice of loading key public health advisory panels with individuals sympathetic to or employed by the chemical industry. EWG examined seven EPA panels established in 2007 that use non-EPA scientists to evaluate the agency's proposed safe daily exposure levels, or "reference doses,” for important commercial chemicals where the agency is concerned about human exposure. In this small snapshot we identified 17 individuals who were employees of companies that make the chemicals under review, scientists whose work was funded by industries with a financial stake in the panel outcome, or scientists who have made over-reaching public statements about the safety of the chemical in question.

To our knowledge, EPA’s decision to remove Dr. Rice as chair of the Deca review panel represents the first time EPA has kicked a scientist off any panel for expressing concern about a chemical's health risks. Removing panelists because they state their concerns about a chemical's toxicity, while promoting scientists with clear financial ties to the regulated industry, sends a dangerous signal that EPA will not tolerate the views of individuals who believe in precaution in the face of evidence that a chemical presents a legitimate health risk.

Chemical Industry Used Allies inside the Agency to Bump Panel Chair

The chemical industry’s trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), submitted their demand for Dr. Rice’s removal to Dr. George Gray of EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ACC 2007). Before joining EPA Dr. Gray headed up an organization funded by the ACC called the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, well-known for their studies and advocacy to dismiss concerns about chemical safety.

ACC acted on behalf of their Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Panel (BFRIP) in making their demands to EPA. Recent media reports reveal that other efforts by the Bromine Industry to keep Deca on the market have included hiring a lobbyist who also represented the tobacco industry and the National Association of State Fire Marshalls in advocating for increased use of chemical fire retardants in place of fire-safe cigarettes and other commonsense methods to reduce fire risk (Shin 2008).

Rice's Removal From the Panel Could Weaken the Safety Standard

EWG’s line-by-line comparison of the panel report before and after EPA stripped Dr. Rice’s comments from the document shows that the altered document is now missing major concerns relevant to Deca’s risks to humans, particularly infants, children, and other vulnerable populations. EPA’s failure to consider these points could substantially influence their decision on an appropriate safety standard for the chemical:

• Dr. Rice noted that EPA had no scientific basis for its assumption that a single day of Deca exposure linked to brain damage in animal studies is the most critical period of vulnerability for animal and human brain development. EPA’s recognition of this data gap would result in an additional factor of safety applied to the Agency’s daily safe dose (the reference dose, or RfD). Now the panel’s recognition of the data gap and the Agency’s baseless assumption is completely missing from the panel review document.
• Dr. Rice noted that Deca risks should be considered in tandem with risks from related PBDEs that are also common blood and breast milk pollutants. Since all congeners being evaluated show the same type of neurotoxicity, health risks from these fire retardants would be additive. This comment reflects a view of additive chemical risks widely accepted across the scientific community but absent from EPA’s proposed methods for assessing Deca risks. Because the agency removed her comments, the panel review document no longer reflects this important point. EPA’s failure to consider additive risks would result in a vastly less protective health standard for Deca.

The EPA Double Standard

Over the past seven years it has become common practice for scientists with conflicts of interest and well-known, pro-industry biases to serve on and even lead EPA advisory panels. Some examples include:

Direct financial conflict – Scientists employed by the companies who make the chemicals under review.

Dr. Robert Schnatter sits on EPA’s expert panel charged with producing an assessment of the cancer potential of the chemical ethylene oxide, a mammary carcinogen used as a fumigant and hospital equipment sterilizer. Schnatter works for ExxonMobil, a manufacturer of the chemical he is charged with reviewing. EPA chose Schnatter for the panel despite the obvious contradiction his appointment presents to their policy to “always make every effort to use peer reviewers who do not have any conflict of interest...” (EPA 2006).

Public statements that could indicate bias.

Dr. Rice was removed from the PBDE panel for making public statements indicating that she had formed an opinion about the safety of the chemical. Yet similar statements have been made by many other reviewers examining other chemicals, almost always to the effect that the chemical under review is safe. Consider Lorelei Mucci, of the Harvard School of Public Health, who sits on a panel slated to review EPA’s proposed revisions to the safety standard for acrylamide, a contaminant of baked and fried food (EPA SAB 2008). Dr. Mucci has made numerous public statements discounting the health risks of acrylamide. As just one example, in August 2007 she claimed in the media that “The intake of acrylamide, no matter how much is consumed, is not a breast-cancer risk factor” (Riddell 2007). At the time she made this statement, findings from laboratory and epidemiology (human) studies conflicted on this point. Just months after her statement, a new study found more than double the incidence of estrogen-related breast cancers among women with high exposures to acrylamide in food compared to women with lower exposures (Thonning 2008). For her history of similar statements, reports of Dr. Mucci’s work have been characterized by respected scientist Dale Hattis as “scientific overreaching” (Hattis 2003).

Career consultants with a clear record of work to weaken health standards on behalf of industrial clients.

EPA panel chair and industry consultant Dr. Betty Anderson secured a panel decision to support EPA’s proposed 3-fold weakening of the health standard for a plastics chemical and common human pollutant called dibutyl phthalate (DBP) (EPA 2006b). The year that Dr. Anderson reviewed EPA's draft standards, her employer, Exponent, was under contract with ACC's Phthalate Ester Panel to discredit a key epidemiological study that found everyday exposures to DBP were linked to reproductive system defects in baby boys (Exponent 2006). The next year Exponent released a defense of a phthalate used in children's toys funded by the Toy Industry Association (TIA 2007).

In her work for chemical makers, Anderson clearly expressed her goal to weaken health standards. Memos written by Anderson and housed in the national tobacco library show that she lobbied EPA for a more than 3-fold weakening of health protections on behalf of R.J. Reynolds. She first designed work to “bolster our position that [safety factors] used by EPA… can be dropped” (Anderson 1999a), and then relayed her success to her client at Reynolds: “I believe EPA has conceded a 10-fold [safety] factor reduction to 3…” (Anderson 1999b). She also advocated for two types of studies that could further weaken health standards: “Both or either [type of study] could remove the factor of 3.” Remarkably, in that statement she is predetermining findings from studies she had yet to design (Anderson 1999b).

In another example that illustrates the same type of conflict, frequent EPA consultants James Swenberg and Vernon Walker conduct industry-funded research to demonstrate that mutagenic chemicals do not cause cancer in humans. Their findings conflict with a wealth of established scientific evidence. Dr. Swenberg was a panelist for 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and both were consultants to the ethylene oxide panel.

Scientists who consult to companies that make the chemicals under review.

EWG’s review revealed that in 2007 EPA panels included at least 13 additional members whose employers have worked for or have been funded by companies who make the chemicals they are charged with reviewing. Industry consultants are inherently conflicted as panel members, since companies hire consultants who will represent what they consider to be their best interests. On panels, a consultant's support for strengthening health standards could compromise their chances to win contracts from chemical manufacturers, while their expressions of rationale for weakening health standards immediately raise their prospects for future contracts. It takes a unique consultant, one willing to risk losing future personal income, to support strengthening public health protections when it’s needed.

Click here for detailed information about potential conflicts among industry consultants.

Recommendations

EWG calls on EPA to clarify their guidance with respect to public statements by panel members, and commit to a transparent process for resolving allegations of bias. In order to restore public confidence in the peer review process EPA must:

• Reinstate Dr. Rice as the chairperson of the PBDE (Deca) expert review panel;
• Remove the altered panel review document from public record and restore the original panel review document that included Dr. Rice’s comments; and
• Promptly issue an updated health standard for Deca that adequately protects public health and that thoroughly considers Dr. Rice’s comments, including the issue of additive risks from multiple related fire retardants that widely contaminate the U.S. population.

However, EPA’s double standard for panel experts is much broader than the single panel assessing Deca health standards. In order to maintain the integrity of peer review for agency decisions, EPA must:

• Collect information regarding all current and past financial ties between prospective panelists and companies who might benefit from weakened safety standards;
• Create formal, public records of their determination of bias for each scientist selected as reviewer; and
• Release all records of any similar instances in which EPA has removed panel members or published altered versions of EPA expert reviewer submissions.

EWG is submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to EPA to turn over all documentation collected by the Agency or its contractors regarding potential conflicts of interest for external review panels during 2006 and 2007. This includes a request for files documenting inter-agency discussions of potential conflicts for individual reviewers, including Dr. Rice, and any communication with outside parties (like ACC) about the external reviewers.

Review Panel Timeline

Documents obtained by EWG reveal that EPA dismissed the chair of their high-profile external review panel at the request of the American Chemical Council (ACC) representing the interests of the companies who produce the toxic fire retardants under consideration (BFRIP). EPA’s move is in conflict with their own voluntary guidance documents. These require, at a minimum, that their handling of allegations of bias be transparent and well documented for the public (EPA 2006).

Timeline of EPA and industry actions

EPA is updating its 1989 Deca safety standard, and creating new standards for other PBDE fire retardants as well, including Tetra, Penta, and Hexa PBDE. The process began with a literature review in 2002. In late 2006, EPA posted their draft risk calculations for public comment and announced the expert review meeting (EPA-NCEA 2007d).

12/22/2006	EPA posts their draft health standards for Deca and other PBDEs in the Federal Register, and announces the first expert panel meeting.
mid-Feb 2007	Dr. Rice of Maine CDC testifies before Maine Legislature on the need for use restrictions on Deca.
2/22/2007	PBDE Expert Panel convenes, with Dr. Rice as chair.
3/22/2007	EPA posts final Expert Panel report as a pdf file. The document includes Dr. Rice's comments.
5/3/2007	ACC demands that EPA kick Dr. Rice off the expert panel.
6/15/2007	ACC meets with EPA to discuss their concerns with the process.
8/13/2007	EPA kicks Dr. Rice off of the panel, strips her comments from the Expert Panel report, and republishes the altered version. The document contains no mention of Dr. Rice and no record of EPA's actions to remove her comments.
9/21/2007	ACC writes EPA. They request that EPA post the reasons for removing Rice on EPA's website.
11/26/2007	EPA posts 3rd version of Expert Panel comments. This version adds a disclaimer about the removal of Dr. Rice, and notes that EPA is not considering her comments in its final safety standard for Deca.
1/8/2008	EPA responds to second ACC letter
3/28/2008	EPA is expected to issue its final safety standard for Deca.

In January and February 2007, before the External Review panel met, Dr. Rice's agency, Maine CDC, released a joint report with Maine EPA, reviewing the need for use restrictions for Deca PBDE and the suitability of alternative fire retardants. Dr. Rice was a co-author. The report concluded that "safer alternatives are available to meet flammability standards for TVs, mattresses and residential upholstered furniture" (Rice 2007a).

Dr. Rice was asked to testify before the Maine Legislature and offer her opinion about a bill that would restrict Deca in products sold in Maine. She presumably echoed the Agency conclusion in testimony in February 2007. Dr. Rice was in a unique position to make such comments as she was the co-author of a low dose study (Rice 2007b) that confirmed the neurological deficits observed in the principal study used to derive the reference dose for Deca PBDE (Viberg 2003).

Deca in consumer products, people,
and the environment

Over the past 5 years, numerous investigations have substantiated the widespread accumulation of PBDEs in people, wildlife and the environment. In response to these findings, bromine companies agreed to voluntarily phase-out 2 of the 3 forms of PBDEs in 2005. The third form, Deca, is still in widespread use in televisions and computer monitors, although 2 U.S. states recently passed restrictions and many other states are considering similar legislation.

CDC recently reported that nearly all of the 2,000 people they tested have detectable concentrations of many PBDEs in them. CDC’s tests did not include Deca due to analytical difficulties, but Deca has recently been reported in human samples from Europe, Central America, Asia and several small studies in the United States (Athanasiadou 2008; Bi 2006; EWG 2003; Qu 2007). Laboratory studies show single day exposures during sensitive periods of brain development result in permanent changes to rodent attention and behavior (Rice 2007b; Viberg 2003; Viberg 2008). It is not currently known how those doses compare to the daily exposure for Americans, but EPA’s draft risk calculations are a first step to set daily safe exposure levels for people. EPA’s external review committee was reviewing the risk calculations to translate these studies into daily safe exposure values for human beings.

2/22/2007 PBDE Expert Panel convenes.
The EPA contractor convened the advisory panel of 5 scientists to provide EPA with a rigorous review of the scientific basis for the agency's proposed health standards. Expert reviewers were asked to answer a set of questions from EPA regarding the completeness of the Agency's literature review, the adequacy of data and the appropriate use of uncertainty factors in EPA’s derivation of a daily safe exposure level, or Reference Dose (RfD) (EPA-NCEA 2007e).

3/22/2007 EPA posts Expert Panel comments.
The document contains the individual comments from 5 reviewers (EPA 2007a). Dr. Rice is listed as panel chair. She raises several issues that others did not address. Nonetheless the 5 expert reviewers are generally in agreement with EPA’s selection of low dose studies and the general steps taken to translate those to daily safe exposures that do not risk human health.

5/3/2007 ACC demands that EPA remove Dr. Rice from the Deca panel.
ACC’s Sharon Kneiss wrote to ORD Assistant Administrator George Gray a former head of a consultant group that receives ACC funding, to ask that he personally intervene in the process (ACC 2007). ACC, acting on behalf of BFRIP, the Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Partnership, alleges that the panel is not an “independent, third-party review” because Dr. Rice is a “fervent advocate of banning deca-BDE.” In an interview with a local paper Dr. Rice stated that “there is no question” that Deca PBDE should be eliminated from commerce because it was a persistent toxin that accumulates in the food chain. ACC alleged that, “[T]here is no doubt that [Dr. Rice] has taken a very public position concerning a regulatory determination that is fundamental to the very issues presented to the panelists in the draft IRIS Toxicological Reviews” (ACC 2007).

ACC fails to note that Dr. Rice’s testimony was solicited by the legislature and offering her expert opinion was in fact a requirement of her job. However, unlike industry-employed scientists (who often serve in this capacity) Dr. Rice has no direct or indirect financial incentive to sway panel findings.

6/15/2007 ACC meets with EPA in person to express concerns about Dr. Rice and the proposed risk values.
There is no public record of the discussion during this closed door meeting.

8/13/2007 EPA posts 2nd version of Expert Panel comments as a pdf file. All of Dr. Rice’s comments are omitted.
In August, EPA posts an identically formatted document that omits Dr. Rice’s name and all of her comments (EPA 2007d). The new pdf file was placed on the same webpage, and the title page still listed the date of the report to be February 2007 (EPA-NCEA 2007b).

9/21/2007 Nancy Sandrof of ACC writes EPA on behalf of Bromine producers (BFRIP).
ACC writes a second letter requesting that EPA post the reason for removing Rice on EPA's website and take steps to assure that Dr. Rice's comments not influence the other reviewers or the overall outcome. They ask that EPA not use the Viberg study--showing neurological impacts to mice given a single dose of Deca--for the risk assessment and request a delay in the publication of final values.

11/26/2007 EPA posts 3rd version of Expert Panel comments as a pdf file. Document contains 4 reviewers, EPA discloses Rice's removal.
In November, EPA posted a third version of the Expert Panel comments with a new disclaimer that reads: "Notice: EPA modified this report in August, 2007 to include only four of the five reviewers’ comments. One reviewer’s comments were excluded from the report and were not considered by EPA due to the perception of a potential conflict of interest" (EPA-NCEA 2007c). The new pdf file was placed on the same webpage as the previous 2 versions. However the webpage now has a similar disclaimer. The report title page still lists the report date of February 2007.

1/8/2008 George Gray of EPA responds to ACC.
Dr. Gray writes the Bromine Manufacturers via ACC to confirm that they have posted a disclaimer about the removal of Dr. Rice. An EPA review showed that she did not influence the other panelist. He confirms that EPA will continue to use the Viberg study as a point of departure for their RfDs, as every external reviewer agreed with this decision. He hints that a yet-to-be-published EPA study has confirmed low-dose neurotoxicity after single or repeat doses. Finally, he clarifies that the IRIS assessments have been delayed to provide time to address final interagency review comments.

 

What a surprise. Since Big Pharma has every freaking American scarfing down pills of some kind, our tap water is polluted with all kinds of antibiotics and hormones that water treatment plans don't even try to remove. Great.

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Pharmaceuticals Pollute U.S. Tap Water | Environmental Working Group

Pharmaceuticals Pollute U.S. Tap Water

Immediate Release: Monday, March 10, 2008
Contact: EWG Public Affairs (202) 667-6982

WASHINGTON - A wide range of pharmaceuticals that include antibiotics, sex hormones, and drugs used to treat epilepsy and depression, contaminate drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, according to a 5-month investigation by the Associated Press National Investigation Team released today.

 “Environmental Working Group's (EWG) studies show that tap water across the U.S. is contaminated with many industrial chemicals, and now we know that millions of Americans are also drinking low-level mixtures of pharmaceuticals with every glass of water,” said Jane Houlihan, EWG Vice President for Research. “The health effect of this cocktail of chemicals and drugs hasn't been studied, but we are concerned about risks for infants and others who are vulnerable. Once again, the press is doing EPA‘s work when it comes to informing the public about contaminated tap water.“

Environmental Working Group analysis shows that of the top 200 drugs in the U.S., 13 percent list serious side effects at levels less than 100 parts-per-billion (ppb) in human blood, with some causing potential health risks in the parts-per-trillion range. EWG calls on EPA to take swift action to set standards for pollutants in tap water that will protect the health of Americans nationwide, including children and others most vulnerable to health risks from these exposures.

Drug residues contaminate drinking water supplies when people take pills. While their bodies absorb some of the medication, the rest of it is flushed down the toilet. Drinking water treatment plants are not designed to remove these residues, and the AP team uncovered data showing these same chemicals in treated tap water and water supplies in 24 major metropolitan areas around the US. EWG's national tap water atlas shows tap water testing results from 40,000 communities around the country.

All of the pharmaceuticals reported in drinking water supplies are unregulated in treated tap water—any level is legal. Not only has the EPA failed to set standards for pharmaceuticals, but also they have failed to require utilities to test for these chemicals. The drug residues in tap water join hundreds of other synthetic chemicals Americans are exposed to daily, as contaminants in food, water, and air, or in common consumer products. EWG found an average of 200 industrial chemicals, pesticides and other pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in the U.S., indicating that our exposures to toxic chemicals begin in the womb, when risks are greatest.

• EWG's National Tap Water Quality Database
• BodyBurden: The Pollution in Newborns

###

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The group's research on tap water is available online at: http://www.ewg.org.

 

 

Increased incidence of cancer, increases in antibiotic-resistant bacteria ... sounds like yet another great idea (recombinant bovine growth hormone) from the folks who brought you Agent Orange. Thank God consumers are making good decisions for themselves even when the FDA is not. Too bad the FDA doesn't support labeling of other food products containing Monsanto's genetically engineered ingredients, so consumers can't decide for themselves.

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TheStreet.com : Got Chemicals in Your Milk? | Green Money | CMG COST KFT MON SBUX SWY WFMI WMT

Got Chemicals in Your Milk?

Eileen Gunn

03/12/08 - 10:11 AM EDT

Milk doesn't always do the body -- or the grocery tab -- good.

This is because conventional milk products often come from cows that have been given synthetic hormones and a bevy of antibiotics. But opting for untainted organic products can mean paying a steep premium for your milk, yogurt or American-cheese singles.

Luckily things are starting to change.

Acknowledging consumer wariness, major food companies and grocery stores are steadily moving toward milk products that lack these troublesome chemicals.

The flap over hormones in milk began in the early 1990s, when MonsantoMON won FDA approval for rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone made via a process that involves gene splicing. You can read all about the controversy at sustainable table and the Organic Consumers Association.

The artificial hormone has been linked to cancer and to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria . But the FDA is so far standing firm behind its approval of it.

In a New York Times op-ed last June, FDA alumnus Henry I. Miller touted Monsanto's product as the answer to rising milk and corn prices and to farm-related environmental issues by pointing out that it allows cows to produce more milk while eating less and using less farmland.

Common sense suggests that such a phenomenon probably isn't good for the cows over the long term. And how healthy can milk be if it comes from overworked, stressed-out animals?

Miller goes to great lengths to hammer home his point that the hormone "poses no risk to human health."

But safe and free of side effects are two very different things -- a point Miller handily refuses to acknowledge. Any time we introduce man-made chemicals to our bodies, or the food chain, there are collateral effects. Consumers should be informed and able to weigh the risks and benefits before they opt to ingest (or even potentially ingest) such compounds.

I became wary of conventional dairy two years ago, after reading in the New York Times about a link between hormones in dairy foods and the rising rate of twins in the U.S. As an avid consumer of milk and cheese and a woman of child-bearing age, I was pretty sure I wanted to avoid this particular side effect.

I began to shop organic, but was aghast when I headed to the dairy aisle and discovered that organic milk cost at least double what the regular stuff does.

Luckily, I'm not alone in my discomfort over industrial dairy. Sales of organic milk have been rising in recent years, even as overall consumption of milk remains flat, according to a USDA report. The report notes that milk and yogurt are often the first organic foods that consumers try.

The food industry has caught on to this preference and is giving consumers more choices at varying price points.

In addition to being chemical-free, organic milk comes from cows that eat organic feed and spend time outside with access to grazing pasture. But as organic milk has become widely available -- Wal-Mart WMTnow sells it -- adherence to the spirit of these requirements apparently varies. The Cornucopia Institute did a survey of organic brands not long ago and rated them on a scale of one to five cows for how well their suppliers execute the USDA's organic standards.

A potential difference in quality is important because there is a wide price range within the high-end organic category. At a local supermarket in Brooklyn prices soared from $3.99 per half gallon for Organic Valley, which garners four cows from Cornucopia, to $5.29 for Dean Foods' Horizon label, which received only one cow. The store's one brand of conventional milk cost $1.89 for a half gallon. In another store, a brick of Organic Valley organic cheddar cheese cost double its counterpart from KraftKFT.

If you're willing to give all organic labels the benefit of the doubt, stores like SafewaySWY, Whole Foods WFMIand CostcoCOST stock private label dairy products that carry much narrower premiums. But several of them rate only one or two cows for not responding to Cornucopia's questions.

And if you're more concerned with your own health than with the happiness and comfort of a cow herd, you can skip the organic option altogether and just look for milk, cheese or yogurt that are labeled hormone-free. Trader Joe's sells a full line of them.

Dean FoodsDF aims to have all of its many regional milk brands rBGH-free by the end of this quarter, according to a spokesperson, but it doesn't always label them as such. KrogerKR promised last August to transition to hormone free milk supplies for its several supermarket chains by early this year.

StarbucksSBUX sources its milk, whipped cream and half and half from dairies that are rBGH free and Chipotle Grill CMGdoes the same with its cheese and sour cream.

Meanwhile, Crain's Chicago Business reported in January that Kraft Foods is launching a new line of American cheese singles that will be free of synthetic hormones.

One incentive Kraft has for the move is that foods with a hormone-free label often carry higher prices than other brands, though they aren't nearly as expensive as organic foods. In my local grocery, Farmland Dairy , which delivers hormone-free milk to the New York City area, costs $2.19 for a half gallon, about 30 cents more than other milk.

These moves by big companies are gradually pushing Monsanto's hormone out of the food supply -- less than 20% of milk now comes from hormone-treated cows.

I'm confident Uncle Sam will sooner or later catch up with consumer sentiment and curtail the use of hormones in dairy cows, as it has with poultry and pigs. In the mean time, I'm glad that clear labeling and more options allow me to make an informed choice about just what goes into my moo juice and what gets left out.

Man, the more I read about this woman, the more I realize she is completely unfit for her office.

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Live Search: "julie gerberding" resignation (link here: http://server1.consumerfreedom.com/downloads/pro/docs/050511_CDCletter.pdf)

May 11, 2005

Dr. Julie Gerberding

Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

1600 Clifton Road NW

Atlanta, GA 30329

Dear Dr. Gerberding:

A recent study by the CDC’s own scientists indicates that excess weight causes one-fifteenth the

number of deaths previously reported by your agency. The number of deaths dropped from

400,000 to less than 26,000. The reaction to this news from the CDC’s leadership has been less

than encouraging.

For months, the Center for Consumer Freedom has demanded that the CDC come clean about its

deeply flawed and apparently politically motivated study that was used as a justification to say

obesity would soon become the number one cause of preventable death in America. Now

numerous editorials and columnists are joining the Center for Consumer Freedom in calling on

the CDC to reverse the damage.

Articles and editorials criticizing the CDC for its handling of this matter have appeared in The

New York Times, Denver Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Times, Boston Globe, New

York Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, Des Moines Register, USA Today, Atlanta Journal-

Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Investors Business Daily, and dozens more. The editorial page

editor of the Rocky Mountain News called for your resignation. The CDC’s study even became

the butt of late-night television jokes. Jay Leno quipped: “Great, not only are we fat, we're

stupid. We can't even do math. We're fat and stupid."

One of the co-authors of the CDC’s original study acknowledges that the more recent study,

written by Katherine Flegal and colleagues, is superior. The CDC’s Donna Stroup told The New

York Times: "From a scientific point of view, they are a step forward." Science magazine reports:

"Scientists agree that Flegal's study is superior." Yet the CDC as a whole has refused to

acknowledge the obvious: that the more recent study and its lower numbers are far closer to the

truth.

The American public deserves to know where the CDC stands on this greatly reduced number

and whether obesity is truly worse than the Black Death, as you have stated.

The bloated 400,000 figure was accompanied by a massive publicity campaign that served to

terrify the American people about their weight. As the director of the nation’s leading public

health institution, you owe the American people an explanation and a much more public mea

culpa. That may upset the policymakers, trial lawyers, and pharmaceutical companies banking on

misplaced hysteria about obesity, but it will help restore faith in what stood until recently as one

of the nation’s most respected governmental institutions.

Sincerely,

Rick Berman

Executive Director

Center for Consumer Freedom

 

I guess it doesn't surprise me that someone who could respond so callously (strike that--not respond at all) to the autism epidemic is OK with monkeys needlessly suffering, but this is still pretty awful stuff. Step down, Dr. Gerberding, before you make us all even more embarrassed to be human beings.

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Take Action: Negligence, Incompetence Kill Monkeys in CDC Labs: Demand CDC Director's Resignation

Negligence, Incompetence Kill Monkeys in CDC Labs: Demand CDC Director's Resignation

Multiple recent inspections of laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have uncovered abysmal conditions in which animals died as a result of negligence, incompetence, inadequate veterinary care, insufficient staffing, and poor communication. Even in the CDC's Biosafety Level 4 laboratories, which work with the most dangerous germs such as Ebola, Hanta virus, and Marburg virus, inspectors found problems with veterinary care and infection control. In the wake of these findings, PETA is demanding that Julie Gerberding, the person who presided over this systemic disorder, be replaced as director.

Inspectors were appalled to find the following:

1. Two monkeys had died of dehydration when faulty sipper tubes left the monkeys with no access to water.
2. Three additional monkeys were accidentally given fatal combinations of medications.
3. A sixth monkey died as a result of inept record-keeping and poor communications.
4. Animals suffered exacerbated pain and distress through routine procedures that were conducted improperly. One chimpanzee was subjected to 10 attempts at a needle biopsy of her liver, even though more than three attempts are considered excessive by the CDC.
5. Cages were extremely crowded and encrusted with excrement.
6. Worker safety was jeopardized as a result of poor practices and infection control problems.