More drugs may be linked to meningitis outbreak: FDA

(Reuters) - Two other drugs made by the Massachusetts pharmacy at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak may be linked to the disease, U.S. health regulators said on Monday, potentially widening the scope of the health crisis.

The Food and Drug Administration said it was looking into reports of a patient with possible meningitis who received an injection of a different steroid than the one found to have caused 15 deaths. It also said two transplant patients were infected with the rare fungus linked to the meningitis outbreak after receiving a heart drug also made by the New England Compounding Center (NECC) of Framingham, Massachusetts.

Nine more people have been diagnosed with fungal meningitis linked to possibly tainted vials of the injected steroid methylprednisolone, bringing the number of cases to 212, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A Tennessee woman among these cases filed a lawsuit on Monday against NECC seeking $15 million in damages.

Read more here: http://www.reuters.com

A sip of soda: How soft drinks impact your health

Scientists have come up with a blue strawberry by splicing them with fish genes

Scientists are genetically modifying strawberries in order to allow them to resist freezing temperatures better. They're doing it by artificial transfer of genes from a species of fish called the Arctic Flounder Fish. The Arctic Flounder Fish produces an anti-freeze that allows it to protect himself in freezing waters.

They isolated the gene that produces this anti-freeze and introduced it to the strawberry. The result is a strawberry that looks blue and doesn't turn to mush or degrade after being placed in the freezer. While they're not in production, research is ongoing. Would you eat blue strawberries?

Source: http://buzz.naturalnews.com/000061-food-science-GMO.html

Ground under Fukushima Unit 4 sinking, structure on verge of complete collapse

Though the mainstream media has long since abandoned the issue, the precarious situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan is only continuing to worsen, according to a prominent Japanese official. During a recent interview, Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to both Switzerland and Senegal, explained that the ground beneath the plant's Unit 4 is gradually sinking, and that the entire structure is very likely on the verge of complete collapse.

This is highly concerning, as Unit 4 currently holds more than 1,500 spent nuclear fuel rods, and a collective 37 million curies of deadly radiation that, if released, could make much of the world completely uninhabitable. As some Natural News readers will recall, Unit 4 contains the infamous elevated cooling pool that was severely damaged following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011.

According to the Secretary of former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the ground beneath Unit 4 has already sunk by about 31.5 inches since the disaster, and this sinking has taken place unevenly. If the ground continues to sink, which it is expected to, or if another earthquake of even as low as a magnitude six occurs in the region, the entire structure could collapse, which would fully drain the cooling pool and cause a catastrophic meltdown.

"If Unit 4 collapses, the worse case scenario will be a meltdown, and a resultant fire in the atmosphere. That will be the most unprecedented crisis that man has ever experienced. Nobody will be able to approach the plants ... as all will have melted down and caused a big fire," said Murata during the interview. "Many scientists say if Unit 4 collapses, not only will Japan lie in ruin, but the entire world will also face serious damages."

Because there are 31 nuclear units of a similar type to Unit 4 in the U.S., the American government has been downplaying the disaster to protect its own reputation, alleges Murata. This is, in fact, the primary reason why so little has been reported on the severity of Fukushima following the disaster. The American empire, in other words, does not want the world, nor the American people, to know that there is the possibility of literally dozens of Fukushima situations occurring on American soil, should the right disaster situations arise.

You can watch the full 3:51 minute translated interview with Murata at the following link:
http://youtu.be/-LCTv65aqgA

Sources for this article include:

http://enenews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/035789_Fukushima_Cesium-137_Plume-Gate.html

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/037556_Fukushima_power_plant_collapse.html#ixzz29hXBLVKD

Say goodbye to gluten: Over 200 clinically confirmed reasons to avoid wheat

This title is the same as a recent GreenMedInfo.com. It contains a list of over 200 health problems, with celiac disease at the top and including many more not normally associated with gluten intolerance.

The author and founder of GreenMedInfo.com, Sayer Ji, prefers the term gluten toxicity to gluten sensitivity or gluten intolerance... "in order to shift the focus away from the victim back to the aggressor, the gluten itself."

Sayer Ji's GreenMedInfo.com article lists all the disorders linked to gluten. They are hyperlinked to articles and abstracts of clinical studies recorded in MedLine since 1971.

Explaining the attack on wheat and other grains

Negative reports on wheat and other grains have risen considerably in the past decade. The dramatic rise of celiac disease, a chronic gut inflammation that destroys intestinal villi (tiny tubes) responsible for absorbing nutrients, has been a major focus.

The gluten toxicity that brings on Celiac disease and other autoimmune reactions is mostly from peptides contained in gluten known as gliadin proteins, which damage the intestinal tract.

In addition to Celiac disease, which if undetected leads to malnutrition that creates other diseases, gluten toxicity can result in several other manifestations of poor health, including chronic fatigue and mental disorders.

Lectins, sticky proteins common to all plants for self defense, are a prominent feature of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA). In addition to flattening out intestinal villi and causing Celiac, they can penetrate gut linings and create leaky gut.

Once lectins get into the blood stream, they can bind to leptin receptors, blocking the leptin sensitivity that lets you know you've had enough to eat, creating a sluggish metabolism, and disrupting insulin balance. In other words, it leads to obesity and diabetes.

So how did the "staff of life" become a weed of disease?

For starters, wheat is not the same today. It has been hybrid over time to resist fungus, grow more quickly, and be more pliable for industrial bread baking. 50 years or so ago, wheat contained only five percent gluten. Today, it is 50 percent gluten.

The food industry's concern for production efficiency and perception of consumer demands has focused on the bottom line with the usual disregard to the negative health consequences of fellow humans. Breads and other baked goods are hastily produced with additives and short cuts that are actually toxic.

In the UK, some of Europe, and North America, slightly different high speed methods of baking evolved over time. By adding "improvers" with usually toxic additives and mixing the dough violently, loaves of bread could be baked, cooled, and packaged within a few short hours.

Agricultural resources then sped up the hybrid process for wheat to accommodate the baking industry's mechanical requirements of pliable proteins, leading to the 10-fold increase of wheat's gluten since that time.

This situation has permeated almost all nations. There are some exceptions; for instance, most of Europe doesn't permit chemically bleaching flour to produce white bread. They use sunlight to "bleach" wheat.

Having your cake and eating it too

Not all of us are prepared to go strictly Paleo and exclude all grains and legumes. Some of us still prefer not to eat animals, and if the food supply bottom falls out, many aren't ready and able to kill and skin deer or other animals to survive.

Grains such as rice and dried legumes are easy to hoard and use for survival if the store shelves become empty overnight. The common concern for rice and legumes is phytates or phytic acid, which can block minerals from being absorbed in our bodies.

Overnight soaking, a prerequisite for cooking dry beans, has been known to minimize phytates, or phytic acid. Rice can be soaked overnight as well. The process of cooking itself reduces phytic acid.

Using sprouted wheat flour can ameliorate some of WGA's toxicity. Baking with sourdough starters instead of normal baker's yeast can help also, while combining both may be optimum (http://www.foodrenegade.com). It appears Whole Foods bakery does so.

Wheat's gluten toxicity is reduced by sourdough starters properly fermented for 24 hours or more. A University of Alberta Canadian cereal microbiologist, Michael Gaenzle, suggests that sourdough bread, homemade or from a trusted bakery, may be at least a solution for gluten toxicity.

He referred to a study where recovered Celiac patients suffered no consequences from eating fermented (sourdough) wheat bread for two days. Those who ate regularly produced wheat bread did have a relapse.

The demand for continuing at least a partial grain diet safely has inspired one company, Vitamin Research Products to offer a natural supplement called Lectin Lock, which they claim will help reduce WGA gummy lectins.

Chronic health issues may or may not be from WGA toxicity. Katherine Czapp, whose WATF article is linked below, suggests testing for Celiac disease with Enerolab. (https://www.enterolab.com/default.aspx)

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/037575_gluten_wheat_grains.html#ixzz29hWIuFcM

The time between today and the day the global debt collapse reaches our shores is finite. The U.S. national debt clock shows a nation spiraling into financial oblivion. When Ron Paul says "Americans should be panicking" over the Fed's new QE unlimited policy of infinite money creation, he was actually holding back. In reality, Americans should have been protesting in the streets... everywhere!

But instead, they're going to deny reality, vote in the upcoming election, and pretend that whoever occupies the Oval Office has both the intention and the power to make any real difference. That belief is delusional, as is the belief that the national debt somehow doesn't really matter.

The delusions are, of course, leading us all directly into a head-on collision with history, where the global debt collapse unfolds at a quickening pace and becomes "real" for hundreds of millions of people in North America who have so far escaped the reality of the financial collapse happening across Europe. Before that day comes, here are 26 things you might want to get done.

26 things to get done before the global debt collapse

See a holistic dentist and get the mercury removed from your mouth.

Buy some hardcopy books so you have something to read when the power grid fails.

Move your money out of the big globalist banks.

Bury your gold and silver. Use an appropriate container to protect from moisture and don't forget to tell someone else where you've buried things, just in case you don't make it.

Get the heck out of the city and learn some country living skills.

Pay off as many assets as you can so you have a clear title to anything you don't want the banks to seize.

Get right with God or whatever spiritual focal point you practice.

Wrap up needed apologies or forgiveness. Don't allow regrets to burden you in a time of crisis.

Make color copies of all your important documents, then store them in a safe place. (BTW, a bank's safe deposit box is NOT a safe place. Those will all be looted.)

Get off prescription meds. Any dependence on prescription drugs is a death wish in a collapse scenario.

Stock up on diatomaceous earth (DE) to protect your garden vegetables. The stuff stores forever.

Stock up on extra glasses or contact lenses if you might need them.

Get fit, you'll need to be more fit if you hope to survive.

Take out some cash and start saving nickels. Why? Because nickels are actually still worth a nickel in terms of what they're physically made of.

Learn to use shortwave radio, or better yet get a radio operator's license.

Learn and practice basic gardening skills.

Learn how to raise chickens, goats or other small animals.

Buy a premium-quality set of basic gardening tools, even if you don't yet garden.

Get training on how to use your firearms. When you really need them, there won't be time to practice. If you want to practice on your own, buy the new book by Joe Nobody, entitled, "The Home Schooled Shootist" and start using it.

If you own rifles, sight them all in and use threadlock on anything that might work itself loose in a firefight. You don't want your gear falling apart when you need it most.

Plant some figs, aloe vera or other low-maintenance food-producing plants. Do it now to give these plants as much time as possible to start producing food.

Stock up on salt, colloidal silver and other hard-to-get items that you'll routinely need.

Spend more time outdoors to get used to sunlight exposure.

Store away an emergency seed kit.

Get a reliable guard dog who can help provide protection for your family and property.

Buy extra pairs of socks. You can never have too many pairs of quality socks. And you absolutely do not want to have to make them yourself later on.

Obviously, this list can go on forever, but these 26 things should be at the top of your "preparedness to-do list." Bang out as many as you can while staying healthy, informed, well stocked and as far away from high density population areas as possible. The cities will suffer the most in almost any conceivable debt collapse scenario, so take advantage of the relative tranquility that exists right now to move out of the city and get squared away out in the country.

Trust me, you'll be glad you did very, very soon. In terms of timelines, many smart people think we are on the verge of a sudden global debt collapse. Others think we're heading into a "slow collapse" that could accelerate over the next 2-3 years. Some people believe a lot is riding on the upcoming election, and what I'm hearing is that if Romney gets elected, many Obama supporters are going to riot in the streets. Whereas if Obama gets re-elected, U.S. business owners may very well revolt against the failed economic policies Obama has so far pursued. Either way, it's not a pretty picture. Either way, you need to get prepared now for the inevitable.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/037577_debt_collapse_checklist_preparedness.html#ixzz29hU3YhRt