Thermodynamics of Organisms, Wireless Health Risks and the Peak Oil Scam - NewsGrabs 30 September 2007
Health Supreme's NewsGrabs are a selection of alternative health and other underprivileged news. Find what you may have missed in your everyday reading - watch out for these weekly NewsGrabs .... and if some of these news seem strange, don't worry. You aren't required to believe what is being reported. Just pick what seems of interest and then make up your own mind.
On the subject of contradictory information, I have found it useful to suspend judgement and merely note the contradictions - to be later resolved as more information becomes available...
In this issue:
Omega-3 fatty acids against diabetes - Food Supplements Directive and the EU Treaty - Bush Signs Law Boosting FDA - FDA Fails on Clinical Trial Safety - Pharmacist fined for natural therapies - 'Proof still needed' for flu jab - Arkansas Plans Lawsuit Over Antipsychotics - US Attorney General orders Monsanto to reveal secrets - Fluoridation: Responsibility of Water Officials - Thermodynamics of Organisms - Worry over wireless health risks - Cannabis May Offer Alzheimer’s Hope - Defense Contractors To Assist Drug War - Is "Peak Oil" A Scam?
More information out there...Of course there is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.
...
The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is another great place to get information on what is happening in the world of nutrition and other natural health options.
For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.
If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News. You can watch when you want, but you can also send in your own video news broadcasts from your corner of the globe and likely have them published on that viral tv channel.
Some sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't find on tv:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.stratfor.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/- - -
Omega-3 fatty acids protect against diabetes
Overall, the researchers found at-risk children who ate a lot of foods rich in omega-3 were 55 percent less likely to have pancreatic islet autoimmunity. "This is the first study to show this," Norris said in a telephone interview. "This is all omega-3 fatty acids, not just the kind that are found in fish."
Ireland: Will Food Supplements Directive influence vote on EU Treaty?
While it is common veterinary practice to supplement the diets of livestock with nutrients such as selenium and cobalt, Ms Darcy commented: “It is quite shocking that humans are going to be denied access to the levels of nutrients necessary to compensate for the nutritional inadequacy in common foodstuffs under this directive.” She added “There has to be something wrong with a system that acknowledges the problem of nutritional deficit in our foods and on the one hand endorses supplementation for animals, while on the other hand bans citizens from being able to meaningfully supplement their own diets.”
Bush Signs Drug Safety Law Boosting FDA Power
President George W. Bush has signed into law a bill that gives the FDA the power to require drug companies to do more studies on the safety of medicine, if it is necessary, and to mandate new warnings of labels. The legislation Bush signed into law on Thursday also requires drug companies to make public the results of clinical trials showing how their drugs performed and authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to fine drug companies to force them to comply. It will be harder now for drug companies to bury clinical trials that show a new drug's performance in a negative light. Clinical trials will now be registered in a data base.
There are both positive and negative aspects to this new law, but certainly the increased transparency promoted by the obligation to publish all clinical trials will help protect people from the frequent negative side effects of FDA approved drugs.
FDA Fails To Oversee Clinical Trial Safety
That’s the finding of a report to be released Friday by Dan Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA didn’t know the number of trials being conducted; audited fewer than 1 percent of the testing sites and, on the rare occasions when inspectors did appear, generally showed up long after the tests had been completed, The New York Times reports. The failure affects millions who participate in these trials.
Tennessee: Pharmacist fined for natural therapies
A Tennessee pharmacist has received a $1 million fine for treating customers at his health-food store with juices and dietary supplements. The Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners ruled in May that Larry Rawdon's practice of treating ailments such as cancer with alternative therapies is harmful, The Nashville Tennessean reported Thursday.A former patient of the pharmacist has created the group MyHealthMyChoice to raise money for Rawdon's fine and petition to make alternative health care legal in Tennessee
'Proof still needed' for flu jab
Researchers from George Washington University, led by Dr Lone Simonson, say that in the US - despite an increase in vaccination coverage from 15% to 65% since 1980 - excess mortality among elderly people actually increased during the 1980s and 1990s. They also cited an Italian study, which found no decline in flu-related mortality rates, even as vaccine coverage rose from 5% to 65%.
"Proof still needed", says the headline. In view of the clearly negative study outcomes, should it not read: "Flu vaccine does not decrease mortality" ?
Arkansas Plans Lawsuit Over Antipsychotics
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel told lawmakers two days ago that he’s planning to file a lawsuit within a month seeking up to $600 million against Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen Pharmaceutica over “improper and unlawful marketing” of antipsychotics paid for by the state Medicaid program, The Arkansas Democrat & Gazette reports.A national coalition of about 30 state attorneys general is involved in a similar investigation of antipsychotic drug marketing but McDaniel told the paper he declined to join that effort because he feared Arkansas would “be lost in the shuffle.”
US Attorney General orders Monsanto to reveal secrets
In response to the Iowa Attorney General's demand Monsanto's press release said, "Farmers buy seed each year based on the yield and value brought to their farms at harvest which has resulted in rapid and broad adoption of biotech seed products."Farmers and the public should be informed that there is no seed which contains a GM trait that increases yield potential. Yield potential has been developed by farmers and seed breeders who have selectively bred for the trait of yield potential by conventional means. Area specific heritage seeds with desired traits are adulterated with the patented GM herbicide or larvae resistant gene and then sold at a premium to the very farmers that had developed these desired heritage traits over several generations of selective breeding. They are paying a heavy penalty for so called research when in fact all they are paying for is the insertion of a single patented gene in crops which they themselves have developed over generations.
Fluoridation: Personal Responsibility of LA Water Officials
Citizens for Safe Drinking Water is serving officials involved in water management in the LA area with notices that they have official and perhaps also personal responsibilities in plans that call for fluoridation using hydrofluosilicic acid, a chemical that has not been certified as either safe or effective for the intended use of tooth decay prevention and the range of application from children to the aged. Putting officials on notice is intended to allow them to remedy the shortcomings in the decision to fluoridate the Los Angeles area water supply.
Thermodynamics of Organisms and Sustainable Systems
The healthy organism excels in maintaining its organisation and keeping away from thermodynamic equilibrium – death by another name – and in reproducing and providing for future generations. In those respects, it is the ideal sustainable system (Ho, 1998b,c; Ho and Ulanowicz, 2005). Looking at sustainable systems as organisms provides fresh insights on sustainability, and offers diagnostic criteria that reflect the system’s health. This paper formalises and updates the ‘zero-entropy’ model of organisms and sustainable systems, and shows how sustainable development is possible by explicit reference to a ‘zero-emission’, ‘zero-waste’ integrated food and energy ‘Dream Farm 2’.At the end of the paper, Mae Wan Ho goes on to say:
In a recent visit to China, I was delighted to discover that something very similar to the model of sustainable systems as organisms is in the official Chinese mainstream discourse; they call it the “circular economy”. Chinese farmers have perfected it over the past two thousand years especially in the Pearl River Delta of southeast China (Ho 2006). It disposes of another myth: that there is a constant carrying capacity for a given piece of land, in terms of the number of people it can support.
There is a world of difference between industrial monoculture and circular integrated farming, it is the difference between the dominant linear input-output maximum entropy model and the zero-entropy sustainable model. The carrying capacity depends on how the land is organised for production. The Pearl River Delta sustained an average of 17 people per hectare in the 1980s, a carrying capacity at least ten times the average of industrial farming, and two to three times the world average.
The thermodynamics of organisms and sustainable systems tells us not only why we must move away from the dominant environmental bubble economy, but especially how we can create a healthier, richer, more equitable and satisfying life without fossil fuels, and we should start right now.
Cloud of worry gathers over wireless health risks
"The exposure to electromagnetic fields is rising, and it's widespread," said Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Environmental Agency, a European Union institution. "So, come what may, we should be anticipating that even with a low dose, but with wide exposure, this will require much more inspection." The agency, which last week issued a statement urging caution, is paying close attention to the results of an ongoing World Health Organization study called Interphone that is evaluating cellphone use by almost 7,000 brain tumor patients in 13 countries, among them Japan, Canada, Germany and France.
Cannabis May Offer Alzheimer’s Hope, Study Says
Investigators at the Trinity College, Institute for Neuroscience, in Dublin report that cannabinoids have been shown to protect neurons from the deleterious effects of amyloid plaque – the primary pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s. Cannabinoids also demonstrate a propensity to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, while also promoting neurogenesis (the birth of new neuronal cells), authors report.
Defense Contractors Awarded Billions To Assist Drug War
Federal contracts totaling $15 billion dollars have been awarded to five US defense contractors – including Raytheon and Lockheed Martin – to pay for counter-narcotics efforts overseas, according to a recent report published online by GovernmentExecutive.com. "Contractors shall provide security and related services in support of counter-narcoterrorism," the article states.
The failed "war on drugs" which really only works to preserve drug smuggling and drug pushing as highly profitable criminal activities is now to be assisted by an army of contractors, just as the failed war on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East is. In Iraq the number of contractors - and the corresponding expense - rivals that for the US troops.
Is "Peak Oil" A Scam?
Geologists are not certain how oil is formed. In western nations, the reigning theory is that oil is formed from the fossil remains of plants and animals. If that is true, then oil is limited. But what if oil isn’t only fossilized critters? What if some other natural process also creates oil? The universe is full of hydrocarbons. Oil is a hydrocarbon. One field of geology says oil can also be produced by natural or “abiogenic” processes that do not involve critters.
The source for much of this data appears to be an older article by Joe Vialls.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday September 30 2007
updated on Wednesday August 15 2012URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/09/30/thermodynamics_of_organisms_wireless_health_risks_and_the_peak_oil_scam_newsgrabs_30_september_2007.htm