The top three supplements used by the Health Ranger: Vitamin D, astaxanthin and fish oil

Over the past several years, astaxanthin has earned a reputation as one of the most potent and powerful nutritional supplements ever made. I first began spreading the word about astaxanthin in 2004 when I toured the BioAstin production farm in Hawaii and published a series of articles and interviews about it (http://www.naturalnews.com/astaxanthin.html).

Briefly stated, astaxanthin is a fat-soluble antioxidant with neuroprotective support. It has been extensively studied in clinical trials, and its manufacturer is able to make several qualified health support statements under existing FDA regulations, including*:

• May help protect the brain from abnormal neurological function.
• May help reduce the proliferation of breast cancer tumor cells.
• May help reduce inflammation in joints and tissues.
• Helps support increased muscle recovery and stamina.
• May help protect the body from cellular damage associated with highly oxidative foods.
• May help prevent UV damage to the eyes.
• May help the skin resist UV damage from excessive sunlight exposure.

Astaxanthin is used by endurance athletes, professional fighters, exercise enthusiasts and others who seek a competitive edge.

My experience with astaxanthin

I have personally used astaxanthin since 2004. It was a crucial part of my dietary supplementation during my years in hand-to-hand combat training, where even at age 38 I was out-lasting the 19-year-old kids in class. These days, I spend more time working on the ranch with a chain saw or hauling bags of feed to the chickens, and I take astaxanthin every day along with a high-quality fish oil supplement from Living Fuel (www.LivingFuel.com). Because astaxanthin is fat soluble, it works better when you take it with a fish oil supplement. The combination is extremely powerful from a nutritional science point of view.

I credit astaxanthin with protecting my brain function, helping me stay mentally sharp and also keeping my physical endurance high. It's not unusual for me to walk 4-5 miles a day, and I sometimes do that while fasting for 24 hours, as I'm into intermittent fasting. In fact, yesterday I fasted all day while I was clearing brush, removing barbed wire, chain-sawing some fallen trees, and doing other basic farm work. Most people would have considered it a day of "hard work" and couldn't imagine doing it on an empty stomach. But I did it fasting all day long, drinking only Roobios tea in the morning and taking some astaxanthin and fish oils the night before. (And yes, I am dropping a few pounds now, thanks to intermittent fasting. It really works...)

The Health Ranger's top 3 nutritional supplements

If you want to stay alive and healthy while helping prevent chronic degenerative health conditions, there are THREE powerful supplements that I consistently recommend:

#1 - Vitamin D. This is the single most important nutrient you can buy and consume. It alone can help prevent cancer, boost brain function, help prevent diabetes, prevent osteoporosis, protect heart health, protect mood and brain function, and much more. Nearly everyone is chronically deficient in vitamin D.

#2 - Astaxanthin. As described here, this is the "king of carotenoids." Simply the most powerful antioxidant known to modern science. It's what turns the flesh of salmon bright red (and is believed to help grant them their phenomenal endurance while swimming upstream).

#3 - Fish oil or marine oil (rich in omega-3s). This is crucial. A high-quality fish oil supplement boosts mood and brain function, prevents heart disease, improves skin health, and can even help lower high blood pressure by making your blood flow more easily.

If you were to take only these three supplements and nothing else, you would very likely experience a profound difference in your health. In fact, if we wanted to turn America into a nation of healthy, intelligent people with genius children and highly productive senior citizens, we would want to hand out vitamin D, astaxanthin and fish oil supplements to everybody. It could literally revolutionize the future of any nation!

Of course, other nutrients are important such as vitamin C, magnesium, zinc and so on, but it has long been my belief that these top three (vitamin D, astaxanthin, fish oil) deliver the most profound positive results that people really notice and feel.

In other words, if you have not yet tried taking these three supplements every day for 30 days, you will, I think, be amazed at the difference they make. In fact, I urge you to do so.

Recommended sources for these top three supplements

Best Vitamin D3 supplement: Solgar Viamin D3 10,000 IU. This is a high-dose vitamin D in a softgel. It's not vegan, however. But I like the small size and the high dose of D. I usually take one of these each day unless I'm getting a lot of sunlight, in which case I may skip the supplement.

Best fish oil: LivingFuel Super Essentials Omega-3 from www.LivingFuel.com - It's a bit pricey but I trust the quality, and it naturally contains some vitamin D by itself. I also like Carlson Labs as a source for fish oils. Beware of cheap "big box store" brands of fish oils, as they are often loaded with dangerous chemicals.

Astaxanthin is a powerful carotenoid, one of my top three supplements of all time, and an incredible value that will not be repeated. Take advantage of this now while supplies last.

Note: This is not a vegan supplement. The capsule is made with gelatin. The oil carrier inside the capsule is safflower oil. It is a relatively small capsule compared to fish oil capsules.

* These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA, and this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034735_astaxanthin_12mg_antioxidants.html#ixzz1kV1uxRdF

Calcium controversy explained - Vitamin K2 keeps calcium in your bones and out of your arteries

Popping calcium pills has become the norm in our culture where osteoporosis has become pervasive, but in recent years research points to calcium supplements posing a danger to our heart health. We're left to wonder: is calcium beneficial or dangerous? There is little doubt that calcium plays many key roles in our health, but the latest research clarifies that calcium alone is not the answer. Many leading experts say vitamin K2 is the missing link in the calcium puzzle.

Calcium belongs in our bones, not in our blood. When our vitamin K2 levels are low, calcium collects in our blood and can lead to calcification in our arteries. The Rotterdam Study, which followed about 4,800 individuals for a 10-year period, showed that individuals who consume the most dietary vitamin K2 experience 50 percent less arterial calcification and cardiovascular death.

This happens because vitamin K2 prevents calcium build-up in the arteries by activating the vascular protein MGP, which inhibits arterial calcification. Vitamin K2 also activates proteins that work to mineralize bones. These two important qualities help combat two diseases which pose serious risk for millions: heart disease and osteoporosis.

Experts emphasize that vitamin K2 is better absorbed and provides more benefits to bone and heart health compared to vitamin K1. Specifically, the MK-7 form of vitamin K2 (like that found in the fermented Japanese soy food natto) is especially potent and stable in the body.

Rule of thumb: Nutrients belong together

The problem with calcium is thinking in isolation. In nature, nutrients do not come in isolated packages. Even foods which are particularly high in one nutrient, also contain a spectrum of additional nutrients that enhance absorption and combat possible negative side effects.

Calcium is not meant to be consumed alone. In whole foods, calcium always comes packaged with nutrients like vitamin K, vitamin D and vitamin A. This is no coincidence. Research has shown all of these nutrients work together to promote better health.

Science may just be catching up to the idea that nutrients belong together, but it's something nature has known all along. A well-rounded diet that contains plenty of calcium with vitamin K2 and a balance of other important nutrients will be your best bet for saving your heart and your bones.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.wholefoodsmagazine.com/columns/vitamin-connection/vitamin-k2-puts-calcium-bones-and-removes-calcium-arteries-part-1

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/healthcare/studies/story/2011-12-21/Study-Vitamin-D-helps-bone-health-only-with-calcium/52136618/1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11706280

About the author:
Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer specializing in health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent modern disease. She enjoys thinking outside of the box and challenging common myths about health and wellness. You can visit her blog to learn more:
www.livingthenourishedlife.com/2009/10/welcome.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034741_calcium_vitamin_K2_bones.html#ixzz1kV1J7Qtu

Aloe vera helps reverse cancer and AIDS

One of the best kept secrets in the nutritional field is aloe vera. Commonly recognized for soothing ulcers, hemorrhoids, sunburns, wounds and other skin ailments, many don't know the power pure raw aloe vera juice has for improving and even reversing serious diseases that baffle mainstream medicine.

That's because those claims are suppressed.

If a supplement or nutritional product promotes any kind of cure, the FDA and other agencies send their bootjack militia to raid them. A frightening example occurred in Tampa, Florida a couple of decades ago as research physician Ivan Danhoff MD was attempting to crash the medical mafia's cancer party.

That's when his nutritional clinic was using aloe extracts and curing terminal cancer patients from hospice. Health agency thugs raided, pulling IVs out of patients whose condition had improved dramatically. Many died months later. The clinical trial was going by FDA guidelines to get the aloe extract approved (http://www.naturalnews.com/028239_aloe_vera_FDA.html).

Improving on nature is probably unnecessary with aloe vera

The desire to modify or isolate ingredients from aloe vera to create an accepted medical model that is efficacious without side effects is commendable. But it appears Big Pharma and the cancer industry's good fellas want to protect their turf. Allowing an actual cure would even put the cancer cure fund raisers out of business.

Most store shelf aloe vera juices don't do much beyond soothing the minor ailments mentioned earlier. Those juices are processed, heated, and diluted. That's not the case with all aloe vera products. The right aloe vera juice products are miracle healers (http://www.naturalnews.com/021858.html).

The most dramatic clinical proof of pure raw aloe vera juice comes from research done with AIDS patients. Almost all who were put on a regimen of daily aloe vera juice got better with white T cell counts skyrocketing. It's obvious that aloe vera is a potent immune booster, which implies it can be applied to other diseases.

One of the AIDS patients in this trial was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer and told he had less than two months to live. His liver was so tumor riddled it was four times its normal size. He continued with the juice, improved gradually, and within a year all his tumors were gone.

A doctor involved with this trial, pathologist H. Reginald McDaniel MD, was at first skeptical. But now he has seriously ill patients using aloe successfully. What turned him around was his own illness, a viral pneumonia for which conventional medicine had no answer. He was given a couple of cases of aloe juice, and his cure turned him into an aloe advocate.

Two short videos covering the aloe AIDS/cancer story are linked at the end of this paragraph. The last part of video 2 is censored, evidently to exclude information for ordering that particular juice. Promoting non-pharmaceutical AIDS and cancer cures is a no-no with the FDA. That data was probably pulled to protect them from FDA harassment (http://healthmaven.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-aloe-vera-cancer-cure-part.html).

Aloe's healing power known for ages

The juice's power has been known by indigenous groups for ages. Franciscan Friar Romano Zago discovered how to make the juice from Brazilian Indians, used it with local villagers, and published his findings in the 1980s. He used their recipe based on the indigenous aloe arborescense plant . You can download a pdf summary of his book/recipe here (http://www.aloearborescens.org/Summary.pdf).

Father Zago's juice and others are from whole leaves. It's possible to get aloe juices without leaf skins (filleted) or reduced aloin content to minimize potential diarrhea side effects. Check below for some other aloe juice options or Google for others.

Sources for this article include:

Friar Romano Zago approved aloe juice products http://www.aloedeca.com/northamerica/ZagoNA.htm http://www.aloedeca.com/northamerica/ProductNA.htm

Brazilian homemade cancer cure recipe http://www.aloearborescens.org/Summary.pdf

Aloe arborescense whole plant source http://www.cycadpalm.com/alarpl.html

Video of AIDS and cancer patient cures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2dx0NKP8y8

Another juice source http://www.aloeverafarms.com/aloe-info.html

Another juice source http://www.lilyofthedesert.com/faq

Plug for cancer use http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=537

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034738_aloe_vera_cancer_AIDS.html#ixzz1kV0T2gWL

Repeat business? FDA approves new cancer drug to treat toxicity caused by another cancer drug

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new cancer drug that allegedly treats the deadly side effects caused by another popular cancer drug. The new drug, Voraxaze (glucarpidase), is said to expel methotrexate, a commonly prescribed and highly toxic chemotherapy drug, from the body. But Voraxaze comes with its own set of harmful side effects, which shows that approving drugs to treat the side effects of other drugs is an endless, but highly profitable, cycle of toxicity.

Methotrexate's known side effects include kidney and liver destruction, skin rashes, mouth sores, damaged intestines, and death. The drug often lingers in the body following cancer treatments, as weakened organs become increasingly incapable of expelling it from the body. So to "fix" this problem, the FDA has decided to approve another drug that it says breaks down methotrexate and eliminates it from the system.

But Voraxaze, which is made from genetically-modified (GM) enzymes, carries with it harmful side effects of its own, including hypertension, arrhythmia, allergic dermatitis, nausea, and vomiting. And these are just the short-term side effects observed among a small clinical trial group of just 290 patients, which is the only trial that has been conducted evaluating the safety of Voraxaze.

Worse, Voraxaze received "fast-track" approval from the FDA based on a single clinical study of just 22 patients, which allegedly evaluated the drug's effectiveness. By all reasonable scientific standards, a single study with this ridiculously small amount of participants can hardly be considered a valid indicator of a drug's efficacy (http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm287997.htm).

Contrast this with mainstream medicine's rejection of at least 24 separate studies, all with much larger sample sizes, that have identified a clear and definitive link between fluoride consumption and disease in recent days. "Further research" is always necessary when the issue involves proving fluoride's toxicity, or proving the benefits of an herbal or dietary supplement. But when a new drug is up for approval, one small, industry-funded study is enough for regulators.

So thousands of cancer patients who become poisoned by methotrexate, which is also used to treat psoriasis and arthritis patients, will also now receive an intravenous dose of GM enzymes that have never been definitively proven either safe or effective. Leave it to the FDA to once again pander to Big Pharma at the expense of public health.

Source for this article include:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/us-fda-voraxaze-idUSTRE80G2FE20120117

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034761_cancer_drugs_toxicity_Voraxaze.html#ixzz1kUzdihXq

At least 12 schoolgirls in New York develop debilitating mystery illness, health department refuses to disclose cause (Gardasil?)

Twelve young schoolgirls from Le Roy Junior - Senior High School near Rochester, New York, recently became afflicted with a mysterious condition that caused them to develop tics and other symptoms similar to those associated with Tourette Syndrome. But administrators from the Le Roy Central School District refuse to publicly disclose the condition or its cause, even to the girls parents, claiming that it is a "federal issue."

Since September, the 12 afflicted students, all girls, developed symptoms so severe that many of them had to be pulled out of school and tutored at home, according to WHAM 13 in Rochester. Officials claim the girls have all been properly diagnosed since that time, but they refuse to disclose any detailed information citing HIPAA privacy laws that actually do not apply in this situation, which implies a coverup.

"I can assure you these children have all been seen by professionals that have come up with answers and they are all being treated and they're actually doing pretty well," alleged Dr. Greg Young from the New York State Department of Health, during a recent meeting with upset parents. Dr. Young and his crew say environmental factors, poisonings, illicit drugs, hysteria, fake illness and various other causes have been ruled out -- but vaccines, and the Gardasil vaccine in particular, were not mentioned as being ruled out.

Jim DuPont, a parent of one of the afflicted girls, expressed outrage about the situation to local reporters following the meeting. Though Dr. Young and the health department claim there is a diagnosis, DuPont says this is untrue. He also says that even he has not been told why his daughter and the others fell ill, as authorities are keeping the true cause, if they even know it, under wraps.

"Want to know something? If my daughter had a diagnosis and I knew about it, and I would as her parent, I would tell you that!" said DuPont to WHAM 13. "These girls all go to the same neurologist and there is no diagnosis. They don't know what's causing it. That's why we're all here at this meeting."

Based on the girls symptoms and the fact that they are all girls, the possible culprit of the mystery illness is the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, which is known to severely debilitate many of the girls that receive it. Perhaps these girls are suffering from "Post-Gardasil Syndrome," the new name given to the spectrum of side effects that often manifest after an individual receives the Gardasil vaccine (http://www.naturalnews.com/034338_Post-Gardasil_Syndrome_HPV_vaccines_side_effects.html).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Le-Roy-Parents-Want-Answers-About-Mysterious/6p6ryOqwuESjK31uHuSqCg.cspx

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034635_schoolgirls_mystery_illness_New_York.html#ixzz1jMDNQf1e

Medical journal openly questions science, ethics of HPV vaccinations

On January 12, 2011 the Annals of Medicine published a ground-breaking peer-reviewed paper titled, Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine policy and evidence-based medicine: Are they at odds?, ¹written by renowned researchers Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., and Christopher Shaw, Ph.D., with the Neural Dynamics research Group, University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. ^2.

The article points out to the medical community what most consumers now know about the fraudulent global health agency policies in combination with the pharmaceutical companies lack of science based evidence demonstrating the safety and efficacy of Gardasil and Cervarix before they were unleashed on unsuspecting parents of adolescents.

Clinical Trials on Healthy People vs. Mass Vaccination Campaigns

Tomljenovic and Shaw clearly state the obvious in their abstract by stating that vaccines represent 'a special category of drugs generally given to healthy individuals and therefore a small level of risk for adverse reactions is acceptable.'

Merck's clinical trials were flawed because they used an aluminum adjuvant as a 'placebo' and only used saline as a comparative for minor, non-serious adverse reactions. With serious adverse reactions, they pooled the results from the saline group and the aluminum 'placebo' group. By doing this, they concealed the true rate of serious reactions.

If FDA approved drugs and vaccines were as safe and effective as Pharma would like consumers to believe the risk level should be negligible to none. The FDA removal of drugs after they have been on the market and damaged desperate people looking for cures who then have to file lawsuits to recover damages is simply unacceptable.

Medical Ethics Questioned

The authors also point out the myth of informed consent - basically a waiver signed by medical consumers that they have been 'educated' about the risk vs. benefit ratio of the drug about to be administered. Tomljenovic and Shaw open their paper citing that 'medical ethics demand that vaccination be carried out with the participant's full and informed consent' and not just the handing out of the HPV vaccine Patient Product Insert - prepared by none other than the vaccine's manufacturer.

What the authors do not cover in this paper is what happens to informed consent when governments grant children the right to consent to medical procedures, such as California's recent passage of AB 499 - basically granting parental rights of children ages 12 and older to the state for the treatment of STD's. Is it really because the 'state' knows better - or is it because legislatures have been paid off by the pharmaceutical companies?

The authors go on to state:

"What is more disconcerting than the aggressive marketing strategies employed by the vaccine manufacturers is the practice by which the medical profession has presented partial information to the public, namely, in a way that generates fear, thus promoting vaccine uptake.........It thus appears that to this date, medical and regulatory entities worldwide continue to provide inaccurate information regarding cervical cancer risk and the usefulness of HPV vaccines, thereby making informed consent regarding vaccination impossible to achieve."

Money Talks - Nobody Walks - but the Vaccine Injured

According to Maplight California - a web site that reveals money's influence on politics, contributions from interest groups to CA legislators who supported the bill were $2,174,648 - more than 28 times the $76,404 given to interest groups who opposed the bill.It is also interesting to note that republican based groups and pro-life groups were on the dissenting side vs. the overwhelming number of liberal and democratic groups supporting the bill.

Similar bills are now in front of South Carolina and Florida legislatures. We are now personal witnesses to the erosion of medical ethics encouraged by politicians abundantly rewarded with special interest contributions.

Tomljenovic and Shaw continue their message by reminding medical professionals that 'contrary to claims that cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide, existing data show that this only applies to developing countries. In the Western world cervical cancer is a rare disease with mortality rates that are several times lower than the rate of reported serious adverse reactions (including deaths) from HPV vaccination.'

The author's state - what should become the mantra of all medical practitioners and consumers concerned about vaccine safety and efficacy:

Future vaccination policies should adhere more rigorously to evidence-based medicine and ethical guidelines for informed consent.

Tomljenovic and Shaw cite these key messages:

- To date, the efficacy of HPV vaccines in preventing cervical cancer has not been demonstrated, while vaccine risks remain to be fully evaluated.

- Current worldwide HPV immunization practices with either of the two HPV vaccines appear to be neither justified by long-term health benefits nor economically viable, nor is there any evidence that HPV vaccination (even if proven effective against cervical cancer) would reduce the rate of cervical cancer beyond what Pap screening has already achieved.

- Cumulatively, the list of serious adverse reactions related to HPV vaccination worldwide includes deaths, convulsions, paraesthesia, paralysis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), transverse myelitis, facial palsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, anaphylaxis, autoimmune disorders, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms, and cervical cancers.

- Because the HPV vaccination programme has global coverage, the long-term health of many women may be at risk against still unknown vaccine benefits.

- Physicians should adopt a more rigorous evidence-based medicine approach, in order to provide a balanced and objective evaluation of vaccine risks and benefits to their patients.

- The almost exclusive reliance on manufacturers' sponsored studies, often of questionable quality, as a basis for vaccine policy-making should be discontinued.

- Greater efforts should be made to minimize the undue commercial influences on academic institutions and medical research, as this influence may impede unbiased scientific inquiry into important questions about vaccine science and policies.

- Passive adverse event surveillance should be replaced by active surveillance to better understand the true risks associated with vaccines, particularly new vaccines.

The abstract of Tomljenovic and Shaw's paper, Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine policy and evidence-based medicine: Are they at odds? is posted on the SANE Vax Inc. web site. The entire paper can be accessed via this link on or after January 12. Share the 12-page paper with your medical practitioner, school nurses, and boards of education considering enforcing state legislation, and parents or guardians considering HPV vaccination for their child. Should you have difficulty accessing the entire paper you may contact the corresponding author via email at lucijat77@gmail.com.

The entire paper can be accessed via this link on or after January 12. Share the 12-page paper with your medical practitioner, school nurses, and boards of education considering enforcing state legislation, and parents or guardians considering HPV vaccination for their child.

Medical consumers need to demand the healthcare industry stop focusing on 'drug policies' and direct efforts toward uncovering science-based evidence to identify those actually at risk for the disease. As Tomljenovic and Shaw readily point in their dissertation on the HPV vaccine, the risk of cervical cancer is relatively small to justify a mandatory mass vaccination program with vaccines of questionable safety.

SaneVax Inc. views the presentation of partial and/or non-factual information regarding cervical cancer risks and the usefulness of HPV vaccines, as cited above, to be neither scientific nor ethical. These practices do not serve public health interests, nor are they likely to reduce the levels of cervical cancer. Independent evaluation of HPV vaccine safety is urgently needed and should be a priority for government-sponsored research programs.

By::  Rosemary Mathis, Vice President of Victim Support, SANE VAX, INC

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034636_vaccinations_quack_science_medical_journals.html#ixzz1jMCmFirW

Sources:

1.Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine policy and evidence-based medicine: Are they at odds?Annals of Medicine,

http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/ebm/record/22188159/full_citation/Human_papillomavirus__HPV__vaccine_policy_and_evidence_based_medicine:_Are_they_at_odds

2. Maplight California -AB 499 - An Act to Amend Section 6926 of the Family Code, Relating to Minors

http://maplight.org/california/bill/2011-ab-499/1007609/total-contributions

Story by Norma Erickson and Leslie Carol Botha of SANEVAX, INC.

Please visit our site at http://sanevax.org/

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034636_vaccinations_quack_science_medical_journals.html#ixzz1jMCKJfT3

Why McDonald's Happy Meal hamburgers won't decompose - the real story behind the story

It's always entertaining when the mainstream media "discovers" something they think is new even though the natural health community has been talking about for years. The New York Times, for example, recently ran a story entitled When Drugs Cause Problems They Are Supposed to Prevent (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/h...). We've been covering the same topic for years, reporting on how chemotherapy causes cancer, osteoporosis drugs cause bone fractures and antidepressant drugs cause suicidal behavior.

The latest "new" discovery by the mainstream media is that McDonald's Happy Meal hamburgers and fries won't decompose, even if you leave them out for six months. This story has been picked up by CNN, the Washington Post and many other MSM outlets which appear startled that junk food from fast food chains won't decompose.

The funny thing about this is that the natural health industry already covered this topic years ago. Remember Len Foley's Bionic Burger video? It was posted in 2007 and eventually racked up a whopping 2 million views on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyD...). And this video shows a guy who bought his McDonald's hamburgers in 1989 -- burgers that still haven't decomposed in over two decades!

Now, he has an entire museum of non-decomposed burgers in his basement.

Did the mainstream media pick up on this story? Nope. Not a word. The story was completely ignored. It was only in 2010 when an artist posted a story about a non-decomposing McDonald's hamburger from six months ago that the news networks ran with the story.

Check out the video link above and you'll see an entire museum of Big Macs and hamburgers spanning the years -- none of which have decomposed.

This is especially interesting because the more recent "Happy Meal Project" which only tracks a burger for six months has drawn quite a lot of criticism from a few critics who say the burgers will decompose if you give them enough time. They obviously don't know about the mummified burger museum going all the way back to 1989. This stuff never seems to decompose!

Why don't McDonald's hamburgers decompose?

So why don't fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, "Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won't eat them." While that's part of the answer, it's not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don't decompose and won't be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You'll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they'll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don't decompose is their high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald's meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium -- so much so that they qualify as "preserved" meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there's not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind is why don't the buns mold? That's the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald's hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you're a chemist you probably can't even read the ingredients list out loud. Here's what McDonald's own website says you'll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Now here's the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald's hamburger bun (except a human) is because it's not food!

No normal animal will perceive a McDonald's hamburger bun as food, and as it turns out, neither will bacteria or fungi. To their senses, it's just not edible stuff. That's why these bionic burger buns just won't decompose.

Which brings me to my final point about this whole laughable distraction: There is only one species on planet Earth that's stupid enough to think a McDonald's hamburger is food. This species is suffering from skyrocketing rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia and obesity. This species claims to be the most intelligent species on the planet, and yet it behaves in such a moronic way that it feeds its own children poisonous chemicals and such atrocious non-foods that even fungi won't eat it (and fungi will eat cow manure, just FYI).

Care to guess which species I'm talking about?

Author: Mike Adams
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/030074_Happy_Meal_decompose.html#ixzz1jHcVk4Se

10 reasons why even democrats, liberals and progressives are choosing Ron Paul over Obama

It's a seemingly absurd idea on the surface: Why would democrats and liberals want to vote for Ron Paul (a Republican) over President Obama? Maybe because they want freedom instead of tyranny, it turns out. Because if you're a total slave to the police state, it doesn't really matter whether you're on the left or the right, does it?

Here, I give you ten solid reasons why even liberals and progressives are supporting Ron Paul. And by the way, I don't worship Ron Paul or any individual. What I honor is the principles that Ron Paul stands for -- the very same principles President Obama has outright abandoned in his broken promises and disturbing reversals against the American people. Out of all the candidates, only Ron Paul has the ethical and moral strength to carry out his office from a place of principle rather than betrayal.

#1) Ron Paul supports decriminalizing marijuana and ending the War on Drugs. Obama does not.

Remember when Obama promised he would decriminalize marijuana, but now his own administration continues to raid legal drug dispensaries in California? That's a classic Obama lie: Say one thing to get elected, then turn around and do the exact opposite.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, openly supports decriminalizing marijuana and ending the failed War on Drugs. Although he doesn't promote recreational drug use (and neither do I), he understands that treating weed smokers as hard-core criminals is ethical, morally and economically wrong. See my related article on Snoop Dogg and his recent drug bust in Texas: http://www.naturalnews.com/034612_S...

#2) Ron Paul supports the freedom to choose what you eat and drink, including raw milk, but the Obama administration continues to run armed raids on raw milk farmers

Under Ron Paul, the FDA would be forced to end its vicious armed raids on Amish farmers and raw dairy producers. Obama has openly allowed such armed raids to continue under his watch, refusing to even take a stand for food freedom in America.

Ron Paul understands that liberty is the most important component of abundance. If you are not free to choose what you want to eat, smoke what you want to smoke, and choose your own type of medicine and health care, then you are a slave, not a citizen. Ron Paul seeks to get Big Government out of your life, away from your kitchen, out of your medicine cabinet and away from your children.

#3) Ron Paul would seek to eliminate FDA censorship of the scientifically-validated health claims for herbs, nutritional supplements and natural remedies

Under Bush and Obama, the FDA's continued censorship of truthful statements about medicinal herbs, homeopathy and nutritional supplements has been fully supported by the White House. Obama is just a corporate puppet, of course, and that means he does whatever the powerful corporations tell him to do -- especially the Wall Street and Big Pharma corporations. So it's no surprise he hasn't taken a stand to support health freedom for foods and supplements.

But Ron Paul has pushed the Health Freedom Protection Act year after year (http://www.naturalnews.com/019382_H...), tirelessly working to legalize nutrition in America and restore Free Speech for Chinese Medicine herbs, Western medicine herbs and dietary supplements. Where Obama wants people to remain ignorant and malnourished, Ron Paul wants to restore your right to know the truth about supplements and natural medicine. As Ron Paul said in late 2005:

"The Health Freedom Protection Act will force the FDA to at last comply with the commands of Congress, the First Amendment, and the American people by codifying the First Amendment standards adopted by the federal courts. Specifically, the Health Freedom Protection Act stops the FDA from censoring truthful claims about the curative, mitigative, or preventative effects of dietary supplements, and adopts the federal court's suggested use of disclaimers as an alternative to censorship. The Health Freedom Protection Act also stops the FDA from prohibiting the distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease."

#4) Ron Paul would shut down secret military prisons like Gitmo, but Obama wants to expand those prisons and fill them with Americans!

It is now common knowledge that Obama lied when he said he would shut down Guantanamo Bay. As it turns out, Obama actually signed the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) on New Year's Eve (when no one would notice). The NDAA grants the U.S. government the claimed "legal" right to "indefinitely detain" U.S. citizens, throw them in secret military prisons, interrogate them and even kill them with no due process. All this can now take place without a person even being charged with a crime, much less given their day in court. (http://www.naturalnews.com/034537_N...)

Obama quietly signed this bill on New Year's Eve, hoping no one would notice. This is how low his morals have stooped, by the way -- to signing traitorous bills in the dark of night, on the evening before a major holiday where half the nation is hung over from alcohol. Why no signing ceremony with full coverage by CNN, huh? Maybe it's because national traitors don't want their crimes against the United States Constitution to be filmed on camera.

In signing this, Obama violated his own oath of office, nullified the U.S. Bill of Rights, and essentially committed an act of mass civil rights violations against the People of America. Rep. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is one of the very few people who has openly and sternly opposed this unlawful NDAA which blatantly and arrogantly violates the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

This single point alone outweighs everything else you might think about Ron Paul. Even if you disagree with Ron Paul on other issues, none of that really matters if you're rotting away in a secret military prison for daring to protest in a public park, for example. Without the Bill of Rights, nothing else really matters because tyranny takes over. The Bill of Rights must be defended first and at all costs. It is the only thing limiting the power of government and protecting the People from tyranny. Without it, we are all little more than slaves to a military dictatorship.

#5) Ron Paul is anti-war, Obama is pro-war.

Remember when Bush was the President, and everybody on the left was screaming about getting us out of all those wars in the Middle East? Funny how they suddenly fell silent when Obama took over the reins from Bush and continued running those same wars, isn't it?

Ron Paul is solidly anti-war. Although he agrees with the need to "defend our shores," he also believes that the United States has no moral authority (nor financial stability) from which to engage in running around the world as some sort of global police force, intervening in the business of nations, especially in the Middle East.

He is solidly against a war with Iran even as all the other candidates seem to be almost desperate to throw other people's sons and daughters onto the front lines of violent conflict. Only Ron Paul truly honors the troops by bringing them home. All the other war-mongers who say "support our troops" are really screaming, "Let our troops get killed overseas!" And unlike Gingrich, Ron Paul actually served his country as a military man, even with a child to care for:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-pau...

#6) Ron Paul's wants to end the Fed and stop bailing out wealthy banksters, while Obama is a Wall Street sellout

Don't you find it astonishing that, under the Obama administration, wall street crooks like Jon Corzine have been involved in the theft of billions of dollars from American farmers and investors, yet no one has been indicted, prosecuted or criminally charged for those crimes?

Under the Obama administration, white-collar crime gets a wink and a nod. That's because people like Vice President Joe Biden actually worship Jon Corzine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3V...). Wall Street crooks were some of the largest contributors to the Obama election campaign, and they continue to promote both Obama and Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, gets no support from the criminal banksters. That's because he pledges to reign in the Fed, end the disastrous trillion-dollar bailouts and halt the theft of money from U.S. taxpayers by the wealthy elite.

Once again, this reason alone is enough of a reason to vote for Ron Paul. He's the only candidate who doesn't support the financial criminals on Wall Street. Maybe that's why the crooked corporate media keeps smearing him in the news... they're all tied in with the same crooks who run Wall Street.

#7) Ron Paul does not need a teleprompter to tell you what he believes, and his message has remained consistent for over 25 years

Obama needs a teleprompter to figure out what to say. That's because he's mainly a puppet who says what he's told to say and signs what he's told to sign (like the NDAA, which he of course promised he wouldn't sign but did anyway).

Ron Paul needs no teleprompter. He doesn't have to keep track of which lies he told in which speech to which group. That's because Ron Paul tells the truth every time, and his message is the same whether he's in Iowa, New Hampshire or Texas.

Ron Paul isn't sexy, trendy or hip. Instead, he's honest, reliable and ethical. Gee, those might be good qualities for leaders to possess, ya think?

#8) Ron Paul is not really a Republican loyalist

This should come as quite a relief to the Democrats out there. Ron Paul is really a Libertarian who is running on the Republican ticket thanks to the necessary mechanisms of our two-party system. Most of today's Republicans are just as corrupt as status quo democrats. They start wars, stage false flag terror events and hand out trillions of dollars in bailouts and government contracts to their corrupt buddies.

Ron Paul is none of that. He's a humble, highly intelligent and principled individual who often votes against his fellow Republicans on bills that run counter to the United States Constitution.

If Ron Paul wins as a Republican, that would of course give Republicans some additional power in Congress, but Ron Paul answers to no one other than God and the People. As all the corrupt corporate lobbyists realized long ago, Ron Paul thinks for himself and cannot be bought off, no matter how high the offer. He sticks to principles, he honors the Constitution, and he is dedicated to improving the future of our nation, period!

#9) Ron Paul wants to legalize Free Speech (again)

Isn't it interesting how many of the OWS protesters are now being forced to pay daily fees for the "privilege" of protesting? Gee, I thought America was a free country, and I thought you could peaceably assemble anytime you wanted and shout your grievances to your government. Guess not: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=FF2F1...

Now the police state pepper spraying has begun, all under Obama of course, who now wants to send Americans into secret military prisons and deprive them of their due process rights. If you believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech, you can't believe in Obama! He is the polar opposite of freedom (plus, he flat out lies a lot).

Ron Paul has fought for the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution for decades, and he has a PERFECT voting record in defending it. He does not waver. He does not bend. He fights for your freedoms in a way that no other Democrat or Republican has ever done.

If you want Free Speech to be legal again in America, vote for Ron Paul.

#10) Ron Paul wants to criminally investigate the crooks in Washington

Most Democrats and Republicans are all crooks who just cover each other's backs. Yeah, you raped a little kid, but I stole a billion dollars from the taxpayers, and we'll just agree to both remain silent. Sound familiar? That's what happens in Washington D.C. almost daily.

Ron Paul thinks elected officials should follow the law. Shock! What a concept! Along with that, he also believes that Attorney General Eric Holder should not run guns into Mexico as part of a staged scam to blame the Second Amendment. Gasp!

Who else dares to say the bureaucrats in Washington are crooks who should be criminally investigated for their crimes against the People? You won't find status quo officials pursuing any of this, of course, because they're all corrupt!

Only Ron Paul stands out above the lawless corruption and criminal-mindedness of the status quo in Washington D.C. He is the "anti-insider," the one man who actually threatens the entire corrupt system (which is why the press smears him every single day). This is why the recent voting in Iowa was falsified and rigged to make sure Ron Paul wouldn't win (this was openly admitted by the Republican leaders on local radio). The crooks in Washington absolutely do not want Ron Paul to become President, and that alone should be sufficient reason to put Ron Paul into office!

You want real hope? Real change? Support Ron Paul

If you love the way things are today -- unemployment on the rise, a government drowning in debt, soldiers coming home in body bags, your friends and neighbors rotting in prison after getting caught with a little weed -- then vote for Obama! He's happy to carry on the insane policies that have led us to this point in history.

But if you want real change in America, support Ron Paul. Make a donation today, so that he can raise the necessary funds to clobber "Mittens" Romney and win the Republican nomination. Then we'll have a faceoff between Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and there's no question Paul would win that contest if the voters still have a couple of brain cells functioning when they go to vote.

Articles Related to This Article:

• Join the Ron Paul Revolution to Restore Health Freedom to America

• MSNBC distorts post-debate poll results to falsely depict Ron Paul as just barely winning

• Ron Paul, the Mahatma

• Ron Paul says enough is enough; blasts TSA for obscene pat-downs and police state tactics

• Health Freedom Candidate Ron Paul Raises $6 Million in Record-Setting Online Boston Tea Party

• Rep. Ron Paul a guest today on the Robert Scott Bell Show (NaturalNews Radio)

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034630_Ron_Paul_democrats_liberals.html#ixzz1jHbHLmsx

If interested and like what you read above, please consider making a donation at:

www.RonPaul2012.com

Or support the South Carolina money bomb by donating here:

http://ronpaul-2012.org/mbpledge_sc...

Source:  http://www.naturalnews.com/034630_Ron_Paul_democrats_liberals.html#ixzz1jHar5uyK

Licorice root proven effective against oral infections

A new study indicates that dried licorice root is effective against the bacteria which causes tooth decay and gum disease, both of which can lead to tooth loss. Reporting their findings in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Natural Products, researchers say that that two substances in dried licorice root may help prevent and treat tooth decay and gum disease.

Traditional healing, modern science

The dried root of the licorice plant has long been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Practitioners of TCM use dried licorice root for a variety of health concerns: to treat coughs, ulcers, sore throat, arthritis, lupus, liver disorders, food poisoning and diabetes. Licorice is known by herbalists to possess antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial properties. The medicinally used root is not an ingredient in the licorice candy sold in the US which uses the similarly flavored anise oil.

As modern medicine slowly begins to accept that traditional healing traditions have value, many herbal remedies proven by centuries of efficacy have been examined using scientific standards. In a previous study, clinical trials indicated that an injectable form of licorice root was effective against hepatitis C. However, mainstream medicine still has not officially approved licorice root as a treatment for any condition.

Corporate funding for herbal study

The recent study is a striking instance of strange bedfellows. In this case, corporate profits proved to be the champion of traditional herbal wisdom. The lead researcher for the study is Stefan Gafner, PhD, a scientist employed by Tom's of Maine which markets natural personal care products, including toothpaste and dental floss. The company, started on a shoestring in 1970, was purchased by multinational conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive in 2006.

Gafner and his fellow researchers analyzed licorice root to identify the compounds work against bacteria. They found that two compounds, licoricidin and licorisoflavan A, offered the strongest anti-bacterial benefits. Both substances were shown to kill two of the major bacteria that were responsible for promoting gum disease. Licoricidin was also found to kill a third bacteria responsible for gum disease. In their article, the researchers say that these two licorice substances may treat or even prevent the oral infections which lead to tooth loss.

Establishing licorice root's ability to fight oral infections will help many people. Statistics from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research indicate that nearly 92% of American adults and seniors have had some form of tooth decay in 59% of teens and 42% of children aged 11. More than 80% of adults in the US may have gum disease, often without knowing it. Gum disease, which in extreme cases can result in tooth loss, is also a risk factor in many types of heart and lung disease.

If you plan to use licorice to improve your oral hygiene, remember that natural remedies should be used with informed awareness. Herbal experts recommend that people with high blood pressure or heart disease exercise caution and not take large amounts of licorice over extended periods. Also, the herb is not recommended for pregnant women. Like most herbs, licorice root can interact with some prescription drugs, causing side-effects.

It is good to read about a corporate conglomerate's profit motive put to good use for once, validating the wisdom of traditional herbal healing. It will be interesting to see if Colgate-Palmolive applies the information from this study to the oral hygiene products other than the Tom's of Maine line. Many Colgate-Palmolive products use toxic chemicals including triclosan and fluoride. The conglomerate is still viewed negatively by many environmental activists, both for its marketing of disposable plastic products and for its New Jersey plant's contribution to groundwater pollution. However, the company has made improvements in the past; for instance, declaring a moratorium on animal testing in 1999 following protests by animal rights groups.

Sources: naturalnews.com

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120104115106.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fhealth_medicine%2Falternative_medicine+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Health+%26+Medicine+News+--+Alternative+Medicine%29

http://tcm.health-info.org/Herbology.Materia.Medica/gancao-properties.htm

http://www.naturalnews.com/017804.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034626_licorice_root_oral_infections_herbs.html#ixzz1jHZv7gsK

How to Write a Thank-You Note That Matters

Thank-you notes are so rare in this digital age that a good one makes a huge impression. Here's how to write one.

I work with some of the nation’s top marketing communications professionals. Every day. So you might think I receive a constant stream of well-crafted, even artful follow-up correspondence. Or maybe just thank-you notes that feature correct spelling.

If only that were true.

It is scary how few people take the time to say “thank you.” The notes I do receive often have typos and grammatical mistakes, even though they’re sent by professionals in a line of work where perfect copy ought to be second nature. This doesn’t build my confidence in them, and it doesn’t do much to help build the type of relationship they intended.

 

There’s no faster way to create a positive impression than with a handwritten note or card. For your employees. For partners. For customers. Keep some simple, professional correspondence cards handy. Then push away the keyboard and write one or two sentences -- by hand.

A masterful thank you is so rare in this digital age that it speaks volumes about the sender. Rarer still is a handwritten note from a business owner or executive. When the sender is a busy executive, handwritten notes are so remarkable that they easily earn awe and admiration.

It’s perhaps a reflection on the state of working professionals right now that one of the nicest, most memorable thank you notes I’ve received recently was from a college student. It was emailed, but it still stood out.

My son attends the University of Southern California. One of his fraternity brothers, Stephen, is interested in a marketing career, so my son introduced him to me. I looked at Stephen’s resume and offered some suggestions. Stephen is interested in speechwriting, so I introduced him to someone who is experienced in that area.

 

In return, I received a lovely voicemail message and a thoughtful thank-you note that covered:

• The thank you
• A stated desire to stay in touch with me
• A brief reminder of his tremendous experience
• Appreciation for the introduction I made for him
• A compliment about my son—always the quickest way to a mother’s heart

I know Stephen is still in college, but this young man is smart and savvy. You can bet I’ll be happy to give him my attention any time --no matter how busy I am. Working professionals can learn from Stephen’s example.

Want to knock some socks off today? Write a meaningful thank you email or, better, send a handwritten note.

Author:  By René Shimada Siegel

Source: http://www.inc.com/

Homemade Fabric Softener - The Non-Toxic Solution

Making your own fabric softener will lessen your exposure to harmful neurotoxins.

Did you know that some of the most harmful ingredients in many of the commercial liquid fabric softeners and dryer sheets include benzyl acetate (pancreatic cancer), benzyl alcohol (upper respiratory tract irritant), ethanol (central nervous system disorders), limonene (carcinogen) and chloroform (neurotoxin and carcinogen)? Seventh Generation and Ecover are two brands that offer an eco-friendly choice. But, one thrifty and healthy way you can avoid exposing you and your family to these scary neurotoxins is to make your own natural, homemade softener. Here's one recipe for a liquid fabric softener:

• 3 cups Vinegar
• 2 cups Hair Conditioner (natural/organic)
• 6 cups Water (distilled, if you have it)

Mix and use as you would with any store-bought softener product.

Before you throw away the aluminum foil you won't be saving for your oven anymore (see my other tip regarding foil), toss an aluminium foil ball into the dryer with your laundry to remove static cling.

Here's an article on the Scientific American about how harmful dryer sheets and fabric softeners actually are! Good reason to make you're own...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=greener-laundry

Danger of chemical hair dyes: Girl's face swells up like balloon following application

To many, they are just one particular means by which to keep up with the latest styles and fashion trends. But chemical hair dyes carry with them some very serious health risks, a fact that 22-year-old Louise Henson from Skegness, Lincolnshire, in the UK recently learned the hard way.

The UK's Daily Mail reports that the young bartender recently tried to apply Garnier Nutrisse "caramel golden light brown" hair dye to her hair in order to match the hair color of her favorite media icon Cheryl Cole, from the popular television show X Factor. But the dye caused a severe allergic reaction that left Louise with a swelled face and extremely itchy skin.

"It was like I had a severe facial deformity, it was humiliating," said Louise to the Daily Mail about her experience. "It took a week before my face began getting back to normal."

After being rushed to the hospital where she was given steroid injections to curb the swelling, Louise was told that the chemicals in the dye she used were responsible for the reaction. Doctors also informed her that she would not be able to use hair dyes again because they could cause an even more severe reaction next time.

The same Daily Mail report highlights injuries sustained by 24-year-old Zoe Vernon after she tried to use a chemical hair dye kit at home. The chemicals in that application caused such a severe reaction that Zoe was left with severe burns and "weeping blisters" all over her face. She compared the experience to being severely burned in a fire.

In Louise's case, doctors did not necessarily know which specific chemical was responsible for her reaction. But in Zoe's case, a chemical known as para-phenylenediamine (PPD), which is a petroleum-based coloring dye, was identified as at least one culprit. And Zoe is now on a mission to ban the use of PPD in hair dyes and other consumer products.

You can see photos of both girls at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079355/X-Factor-fans-face-balloons-suffering-severe-reaction-hair-dye-shed-picked-look-like-Cheryl.html

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), exposure to PPD can cause irritation of the pharynx and larynx, bronchial asthma, and sensitization dermatitis. The agency says the chemical should never touch the skin or eyes (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0495.html).

Most conventional hair and personal care products contain dangerous and largely untested chemicals like PPD that can cause severe reactions, and even permanent health problems. This is why it is crucial to avoid them, and instead seek out natural alternatives where all ingredients are clearly labeled and verified for safety (http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/color102804.cfm). 

by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/034605_hair_dyes_toxic_chemicals_health_risks.html#ixzz1jBLZ6j70

Fabric softeners contain toxic chemicals

Fabric softener ads often portray an image of comfort, freshness and sweetness. Yet most fabric softeners contain a grim list of known toxins which can enter your body through the skin and by inhalation, causing a wide range of health problems, particularly for young children.

Some of the harmful ingredients commonly found in liquid or sheet fabric softeners include:

• Chloroform: This substance was used as an anesthesia in the 1800s up through the early 1900s when its potential for causing fatal cardiac arrhythmia was discovered. A carcinogenic neurotoxin, it is on the EPA's Hazardous Waste list. Inhaling its vapors may cause loss of consciousness, nausea, headache, vomiting, and/or dizziness, drowsiness. It may aggravate disorders of the heart, kidneys or liver. Its effects worsen when subjected to heat.

• A-Terpineol: Causes Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders, meaning problems relating to the brain and spine such as Alzheimer's disease, ADD, dementia, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, seizures, strokes, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Early symptoms of CNS problems include aphasia, blurred vision, disorientation, dizziness, headaches, hunger, memory loss, numbness in face, pain in neck and spine. A-Terpineol also irritates the mucous membranes and, if aspirated into the lungs, can cause respiratory depression, pneumonia or fatal edema.

• Benzyl Alcohol: This upper respiratory tract irritant can cause central nervous system (CNS) disorders, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and dramatic drops in blood pressure.

• Benzyl Acetate: This substances has been linked to pancreatic cancer. Its vapors can be irritating to eyes and respiratory passages and it can also be absorbed through the skin.

• Ethanol: Another fabric softener ingredient which is on the EPA's Hazardous Waste list and linked to CNS disorders.

• Pentane: A chemical known to be harmful if inhaled.

• Ethyl Acetate: This substance, which is on the EPA's Hazardous Waste list, can be irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract. It may also cause severe headaches and loss of consciousness, as well as damage to the liver and kidneys.

• Camphor: Another substance on the EPA's Hazardous Waste list. It is easily absorbed through body tissue, causing irritation of eyes, nose and throat. Camphor can also cause dizziness, confusion, nausea, twitching muscles and convulsions.

• Linalool: A narcotic known to cause respiratory problems and CNS disorders. In animal testing, exposure to linalool has resulted in death.

• Phthalates: Used in scented products to help the scent last longer, phthlates have been linked to breast cancer and reproductive system problems.

• Limonene: This known carcinogen can cause irritation to eyes and skin.

• Also, if you follow a vegan lifestyle, you should be aware that many fabric softener sheets are made using tallow, a form of animal fat.

Manufacturers are aware that the products contain toxic chemicals. The packaging on many brands include a warning that the product should not be used on children's sleepwear. Since some of the same brands also have large images of children and toys, however, consumers may miss the small print message.

Breathing and wearing poison

If you use fabric softener, these toxic chemicals coat your towels, sheets and clothing so that you absorb toxins through your skin, the largest organ of the body. When you wear chemically "softened" clothes, you inhale these chemicals with every breath. Even if you do not use fabric softener, you can ingest these chemicals through dryer exhaust sending them into the air or simply by working with someone whose clothes have been chemically treated in this way. Fabric softeners are designed to remain in fabric for a long period of time, slowly releasing into the air.

Fabric softeners were invented to hide the unpleasant smells of synthetic fabrics, whose odors tend to become stronger when heated, whether on a sweating, active body or in the dryer. The chemicals in fabric softeners include those meant to eliminate static cling, as well as perfumes to disguise both the other chemicals and the odor of synthetic fabrics.

Alternatives

Fabrics air dried outside on a line do not develop static cling and are more likely to have a natural pleasant smell. If weather or other factors make natural line drying of your clothes an impractical choice, try using more other natural means to eliminate static cling and impart a fresh smell to your laundry.

If possible, install a water softener. You can also eliminate many clothing odors by thoroughly dissolving a cup of baking soda in the water before putting your clothes in the washing machine.

There are several types of dryer ball products on the market. The ones made of rubber may not be the most eco-conscious means of reducing static as these may off-gas. Instead, try the variety made of felted wool. Some natural retailers offer dryer bags, like large tea bags, containing dried lavender. You can also make your own version of these bags by sewing laundry sachets using cotton muslin and filling them with your favorite dried herbs.

In part two of this series, we will look at the listed ingredients and warnings for mainstream fabric softeners, as well as some product lines which are both vegan and environmentally friendly.

Sources:

http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/laundry/consider/

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/fashion-beauty/replace-fabric-softener-vinegar.html

http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/0608/softener.htm

http://shop.sixwise.com/thetoxicdangeroffabricsofteneranddryersheets2805.aspx

http://users.lmi.net/wilworks/ehnfs.htm

http://www.environmentalhealth.ca/special/fall07FabricSofteners.html

http://www.norwexgreenclean.net/page/page/5367159.htm

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/6-natural-alternatives-to-toxic-fabric-softeners.html

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/034617_fabric_softeners_toxic_chemicals_laundry.html#ixzz1jBJlWqjR

Mercury in Vaccines

This article answers the most frequently asked questions about thimerosal and its use as a preservative in vaccines.

Toxic mercury exposure has a wide range of adverse health effects. Currently in the United States there is a public health effort to reduce human exposure to mercury from all sources. 1

What is thimerosal, and why is it in some vaccines?

Thimerosal is a compound that is 49.6% mercury by weight. Although it is not used in all vaccines (for example, it is not used in measles-mumps-rubella or chickenpox vaccines), it has been part of the manufacture of many vaccines since the 1930s. Thimerosal has been used:

• to kill the bacteria that make the vaccine itself (e.g., whole cell pertussis vaccine)
• to kill bacteria that might enter the vaccine during the production process (e.g., influenza vaccine)
• as a preservative to prevent bacterial and fungal contamination of vaccines during their clinical use. In this case, thimerosal is added at the end of the production process either to the liquid vaccine itself or — in the case of dry powder vaccines — to the liquid used to dilute the vaccine

Unless used as a preservative, thimerosal contributes little to the final concentration of thimerosal in vaccine (at most 2 to 3 micrograms of thimerosal per milliliter of vaccine), so the chief concern has centered on thimerosal as a preservative. 2

Although preservatives are not required for single-dose vaccine vials, preservatives are required to help prevent bacterial contamination of vaccine vials that contain many doses 2

Why is this? Most multi-dose vaccines come in vials that are topped with a rubber-like stopper. With vials that contain many doses of vaccine, health care workers repeatedly pass needles through the stopper when drawing up later vaccine doses into the syringe and this can let bacteria enter the vial and contaminate the vaccine.

Does thimerosal in vaccines pose a risk to infants?

When pregnant women eat foods or take medicines that contain mercury, the mercury can be transferred to the developing fetus through the placenta. Infants can be exposed to mercury through foods, including breast milk, or medicines.

Developing fetuses and young children are believed to be more susceptible to mercury exposure than adults because mercury can interfere with the developing nervous system.1

Guidelines for safe exposure to methylmercury, based on the analysis of cases where people were accidentally exposed to toxic levels of mercury, have been developed by three federal agencies1. Although the three agencies’ guidelines are each slightly different, each leaves a large margin for safety, and exposure to amounts that exceed these guidelines does not mean that the individual has been exposed to toxic levels of mercury.

Additionally, it should be noted that, some studies 3 5 show that ethylmercury (the kind to which thimerosal is metabolized) may be less toxic than methylmercury (the kind that was used in establishing the safety guidelines).  However, because little information about ethylmercury has been available until recently, guidelines for thimerosal safety have been based on methylmercury guidelines.

As part of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act of 1997, the FDA began compiling a list of the amount and type of mercury in drugs and foods.

Notably, since the last formal FDA review of thimerosal use in biologics in 1976, two important things have changed regarding vaccines: there have been advances in the understanding of the human health effects of low-level exposure to mercury, and there has been an increase in the number of vaccines recommended for routine use in children2.

In their recent review, the FDA found that, depending on which formulation an infant received for each of his or her recommended vaccines, the infant could potentially be exposed on an immunization day to total levels of mercury that would exceed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guideline of 0.1 micrograms of methylmercury per kilogram of infant body weight per day. (See also FDA’s response to a petiton to suspend and revoke all vaccines containing thimerosal for which there is a thimerosal-free replacement available).

This should have posed no risk to the child because the guidelines were established based on exposure to this amount of mercury every day. (See the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council July 2000 review of the EPA guideline.) Nevertheless, this finding led to the request for removal of thimerosal from vaccines and the temporary suspension of the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine until formulations of the vaccine became available that did not contain thimerosal as a preservative.

Many questions are being asked about the potential effect of thimerosal on the developing fetus and infant, in particular on the developing nervous system 6. To begin, how is thimerosal processed in the bodies of infants?

In one study, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center tested the blood levels of mercury in 16 full-term infants shortly after the children had received recommended vaccines that contained thimerosal. They found that “none of the blood mercury levels observed in the studied infants exceeded the most recently revised lowest level of maternal blood mercury considered to represent a potentially significant exposure to the developing fetus.” 7

More research is planned to evaluate if the thimerosal in vaccines poses a risk to children. The study also suggested that unlike the toxin methylmercury, thimerosal is eliminated through stools within two weeks.

Is thimerosal still in the vaccines that children receive?

Currently, all pediatric vaccines in the routine infant immunization schedule are manufactured without thimerosal as a preservative. As of January 14, 2003, the final lots of vaccines containing thimerosal as a preservative expired.

Other vaccines (for example, influenza vaccine; tetanus and diphtheria vaccine for older children and adults) continue to be manufactured with thimerosal as a preservative—although influenza vaccine without thimerosal preservative is also available.

Trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) has recently been recommended for all children 6-23 months of age, in addition to the long-standing recommendations to give TIV to children and adults with certain medical conditions as well as older adults.

Thimerosal-free TIV is not available in the United States. However, TIV is available both with trace amounts of thimerosal and with thimerosal as a preservative.

The amount of thimerosal in current influenza vaccines is so low that it should not raise concern. The concern in 1999 regarding thimerosal in childhood vaccines was for their administration to infants in the first 6 months of life and reflected the possible cumulative total ethyl mercury burden from all the thimerosal-containing products administered at newborn, 2, 4 and 6 months of age.

For a current listing of the mercury concentration in most U.S. licensed vaccines, you can access the website of the FDA or the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Vaccine Safety.
The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences—a private, independent organization created by the federal government to be an adviser on scientific and technological matters—has established an independent expert committee to review immunization safety concerns, including thimerosal in vaccines.

On October 1, 2001, the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee issued its report “Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders,” concluding, “The hypothesis that thimerosal exposure through the recommended childhood immunization schedule has caused neurodevelopmental disorders is not supported by clinical or experimental evidence”.
Since that review, several new studies have looked for, but not found—an association of thimerosal exposure with autism and other developmental disorders (see References).

In 2004, the IOM Vaccine Safety Committee again began a review to consider any possible associations between vaccines and the occurrence of autism. The 2004 report, “Vaccines and Autism” states that “the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.”

Notes

Guidelines for safe exposure to methylmercury are based on the analysis of unintended environmental exposures resulting in overt toxicity. Such guidelines have been developed by three federal agencies and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 3.3 micrograms of methylmercury/ kilogram of body weight/ week (0.47 micrograms/ kg/ day).
Three U.S. federal agencies have set lower guidelines for methylmercury exposure:

• Environmental Protection Agency: 0.1 micrograms/ kg/ day
• Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry: 0.3 micrograms/ kg/ day
• Food and Drug Administration: 0.4 micrograms/ kg/ day 2

Although these guidelines are each slightly different, but each leaves a large margin for safety, and exposure to amounts that exceed these guidelines does not mean that the developing infant is exposed to toxic levels of mercury. 8
A concentration of 1:10,000

= 0.01% concentration
= 50 micrograms per 0.5 mL

1 microgram

= 1mcg
= one millionth of a gram

Most pediatric vaccines come in doses of 0.5 mL (one-half milliliters) so most concentrations are reported “per 0.5 mL.”
Because thimerosal is half mercury, a vaccine with 0.01% concentration of thimerosal

= 0.005% concentration of mercury
= 25 micrograms of mercury per 0.5 mL of vaccine.

(For comparison, most commercial fish contain an average of 23 micrograms of mercury per 8 ounces of fish (i.e., 0.1 micrograms of mercury per gram of fish)).

Source: http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/thimerosal-mercury/mercury-vaccines

Other websites of interest

• American Academy of Pediatrics statement on mercury in the environment
• American Academy of Pediatrics statement on the October 2001 IOM report
• American Medical Association information on thimerosal-free hepatitis B vaccine
• The CDC’s National Immunization Program information on thimerosal in vaccines
• Environmental Protection Agency general information on mercury and its effects
• Food and Drug Administration information on trace amounts of thimerosal in new DTaP vaccine
• Food and Drug Administration general information on thimerosal
• Immunization Action Coalition general information and resources on thimerosal
• Johns Hopkins University Institute for Vaccine Safety references and useful links
• National Institue of Allergy and Infectious Diseases research on thimerosal
• National Partnership for Immunization thimerosal section
• World Health Organization questions and answers on thimerosal

Additional References

American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Infectious Diseases and Committee on Environmental Health. (1999). Thimerosal in vaccines — An interim report to clinicians. Pediatrics, 104(3), 570-574.
Brayden RM, Pearson KA, Jones JS, Renfrew BL, and Berman S. (2001). Effect of thimerosal recommendations on hospitals’ neonatal hepatitis B vaccination policies. Journal of Pediatrics, 138(5), 752-755.
Clark SJ, Cabana MD, Malik T, Yusuf H, and Freed GL. (2001). Hepatitis B vaccination practices in hospital newborn nurseries before and after changes in vaccination recommendations. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 155(8), 915-920.
Clements CJ, Ball LK, Ball R, and Pratt RD. (2001). Thimerosal in vaccines: Is removal warranted? Drug Safety, 24(8), 567-574.
Hurie MB, Saari TN, and Davis JP. (2001). Impact of the joint statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics/US Public Health Service on thimerosal in vaccines on hospital infant hepatitis B vaccination practices. Pediatrics, 107(4), 755-758.
Mahaffey KR. (1999). Methylmercury: A new look at the risks. Public Health Reports, 114(5), 396-399, 402-413.
Oram RJ, Daum RS, Seal JB, and Lauderdale DS. (2001). Impact of recommendations to suspend the birth dose of hepatitis B virus vaccine. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(14), 1874-1879.
Parker SK, Schwartz B, Todd J, and Pickering LK (2004). Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Critical Review of Published Original Data.  Pediatrics, 114:793-804.

References

• 1. a. b. c. Goldman LR and Shannon MW. (2001). Technical report: Mercury in the environment: Implications for pediatricians. Pediatrics,108(1), 197-205
• 2. a. b. c. d. Ball LK, Ball R, and Pratt RD. (2001). An assessment of thimerosal use in childhood vaccines. Pediatrics, 107(5), 1147-1154
• 3. Magos L. (2001). Review on the toxicity of ethylmercury, including its presence as a preservative in biological and pharmaceutical products. Journal of Applied Toxicology, 21(1), 1-5
• 5.
• 6. Bernard S, Enayati A, Redwood L, Roger H, and Binstock T. (2001). Autism: A novel form of mercury poisoning. Medical Hypotheses, 56(4), 462-471
• 7. Pichichero ME, Cernichiari E, Lopreiato J, Treanor J. (2002). Mercury concentrations and metabolism in infants receiving vaccines containing thiomersal: a descriptive study. The Lancet, 360(9347):1737-41
• 8. Halsey, N. (1999). Limiting infant exposure to thimerosal in vaccines and other sources of mercury. JAMA. 282(18),1763-1766