Feds:Common pesticides jeopardize salmon survival

So what's the point of banning pesticides for household use and having us EAT them? I think WE should be worried if salmon are dying...From the AP:

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GRANTS PASS, Ore. – Three pesticides commonly used on farms and orchards throughout the West are jeopardizing the survival of Pacific salmon, the federal agency in charge of saving the fish from extinction has found.

Under the settlement of a lawsuit brought by anti-pesticide groups and salmon fishermen, NOAA Fisheries has issued a draft biological opinion that found the way chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion get into salmon streams at levels high enough to kill salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The chemicals interfere with salmon's sense of smell, making it harder for them to avoid predators, find food, and even find their native spawning streams.

Banned from many household uses, tens of millions of pounds of the chemicals are still used throughout the range of Pacific salmon on a wide range of fruits, vegetables, forage crops, cotton, fence posts and livestock to control mosquitoes, flies, termites, boll weevils and other pests, according to NOAA Fisheries.

read more here.

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Get Nonstick out of your Life

Do you want to kill this bird?

Do you need any more encouragement to throw out our teflon stuff? Don't let these birds' deaths be in vain. From the BBC:

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Fumes given off by cancer-causing chemicals used to make non-stick frying pans are killing hundreds of pet birds every year, environmentalists say.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature says it is hearing reports that many US caged birds are being killed by the fumes.

It says the chemicals, perfluorinated compounds, are also contaminating both people and wildlife with grave effects.

The chemicals industry says it doubts that birds exposed to ordinary levels of the compounds could die from them.

Guilty till proved harmless

In a report, Causes For Concern: Chemicals and Wildlife, WWF says the compounds, also used in some textiles and food packaging.

read more here.

Learn about Le Creuset here. It almost cooks like nonstick.

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Bernie Mac Another Casualty of Conventional Medicine?

The following from Natural News is interesting because I've been studying homeopathy and some other alternative forms of medicines like Scheussler's cell salts and Bach Flower remedies, and the underlying thread of these therapies is that you don't want to squash the symptoms and make them go back IN and attack vital organs, you want them to come OUT. I read in Dr. Weil's book about someone with a skin hardening disease for which they used strong steroids...and the disease did in fact go inside and harden her organs, which was much more serious.

At our house when we see a symptom, we try to respect it and treat it gently, not force it and pharma it away. So far so good.
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NaturalNews) The number of famous people dying at the hands of conventional medical doctors is increasing at an alarming rate. Today comedian Bernie Mac (best known for appearing in Oceans Eleven and The Bernie Mac Show) died following hospitalization and treatment for pneumonia. At the young age of 50, Bernie Mac joins an increasing roster of other notable celebrities who have died while being treated with conventional pharmaceuticals or chemotherapy: Heath Ledger, Peter Jennings, Tim Russert and many more.

Pneumonia is the name given to a common infection that fails to be properly handled by the body's own immune system. Bernie Mac's immune system, it turns out, was suppressed by pharmaceuticals due to treatments for an autoimmune disorder he was previously diagnosed with, called sarcoidosis.

The most common treatments for sarcoidosis are dangerous steroids (like Prednisone) or immune system suppressing drugs like Methotrexate. Following his treatment with one or both of these pharmaceuticals, Bernie Mac was described as having his sarcoidosis go into "remission." That's conventional medicine's code word for masking symptoms with dangerous chemicals while ignoring the underlying cause of the disease.

"Sarcoidosis," meanwhile, is just a fancy-sounding name for an out-of-control autoimmune response caused by an imbalanced immune system which is disrupted by dietary imbalances and exposure to toxic chemicals through processed foods, pharmaceuticals, personal care products and other environmental sources (like pesticides or cleaning solvents). Bernie Mac didn't really have sarcoidosis; he was merely given that label by doctors who attached a fancy name to a pattern of symptoms that Bernie Mac expressed.

How doctors destroyed Bernie Mac's immune system

Rather than addressing the underlying causes of his autoimmune disorders, doctors pumped him up with more chemicals that suppressed his immune system. From there, Bernie Mac was a pneumonia case just waiting to happen, because at that point he was walking around with a suppressed immune system.

In my opinion, this is why Bernie Mac has now passed away: Because his doctors destroyed his immune system and called it "treatment" for a disease, practically guaranteeing that he would be vulnerable to infections. Meanwhile, doctors completely ignored the underlying lifestyle factors that Bernie should have been told were causing his symptoms in the first place.

Bernie Mac was a brilliant comedian. He was wildly entertaining in Oceans Eleven, Oceans Twelve and other movies in which he appeared.

He radiated a likeable charm and possessed a captivating wit both on and off the screen. Sadly, conventional medicine's dangerous medications have hastened his death and taken from us an uplifting artist who could have lived another 20 - 30 years if he had not has his life stolen from him by modern medicine.

Modern medical treatments are the leading cause of death in the western world, surpassing even the number of people killed by cancer. That's because most cancer deaths, of course, are actually "deaths by medicine." It is the chemotherapy that kills the patient before the cancer! Individuals who put their faith in modern medicine are playing roulette with their lives, and many of them pay the ultimate price for that misplaced faith.

So what should Bernie Mac have done instead? It's simple: Visit a naturopath, get off all the chemicals and medications, eliminate all the junk from his diet (processed foods, etc.) and transition to a mostly plant-based diet rich in superfoods and living foods.

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Diabetes During Pregnancy Tied to Birth Defects

It's just recently that the medical community has recognized diabetes as an autoimmune disease...and now they're thinking pre-empclampsia during pregnancy might be one as well. Anyway, diabetes in any form, type I or II is not only bad for you, it can be bad for your baby. Check it out here.

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Prenatal Mediterranean Diet Cuts Risk of Asthma, Allergies in Children

At the very least, the Mediterranean diet is delicous...

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(NaturalNews) Women who eat a Mediterranean diet while pregnant appear to reduce their children's risk of developing allergies and asthma, while those who eat more red meat appear to increase it, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Crete, Greece, and published in the journal Thorax...

Prior studies by the same researchers have shown that children who eat a Mediterranean diet are less likely to develop allergies and asthma than their peers who eat a more Western diet. But while the protective benefits of a Mediterranean diet appear to be less significant by six years of age, the effects of the maternal diet are still strong.

read more here.

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HPV Vaccine Blamed for Teen's Paralysis

I've gotten a lot of questions about whether to HPV or not. I cannot tell you what to do, only that you should educate yourself, weigh the risks and benefits, and then make an informed decision.

Our extremely wise neurologist said to us, "It's difficult to build a house, easy to knock it down." I tend to the idea of respecting the immune system.

This is from the Mercola.com site:
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A month after 13 year old Jenny Tetlock was vaccinated against the HPV virus, she missed the lowest hurdle in gym class. It was the first sign of a degenerative muscle disease that 15 months later left her nearly completely paralyzed.

Her father, Philip Tetlock, a professor at UC-Berkeley, has embarked on an odyssey to find out whether the vaccine, Gardasil, is to blame.

Tetlock is not the only one concerned. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch has been periodically obtaining adverse event reports on Gardasil from the FDA. 10 deaths have been linked to Gardasil since September 2007, and there have been 140 reports so far this year of serious side effects such as miscarriage and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Sources:

• U.S. News and World Report July 2, 2008

• A Judicial Watch Special Report: Examining the FDA’s HPV Vaccine Records June 30, 2008

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Soy Foods and Male Fertility

I just received an email asking about this. Here you go, from the BBC (note also the comment about Asian males and soy--in Asia people don't eat boca burgers, it's all fermented soy, and not usually as a main course btw):

A regular diet of even modest amounts of food containing soy may halve sperm concentrations, suggest scientists.

The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, found 41 million fewer sperm per millilitre of semen after just one portion every two days.

The authors said plant oestrogens in foods such as tofu, soy mince or milk may interfere with hormonal signals.

However, a UK expert stressed that most men in Asia eat more soy-based products with no fertility problems.

read more here.

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