Doctors eye chemicals for rise in child cancers

By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 -- 11:03 pm

WASHINGTON — A mom whose four-year-old died after losing a battle to a brain tumor called Wednesday for tougher US regulation of chemicals suspected of being behind a rise in childhood cancers.
"There's growing evidence linking toxic chemicals and carcinogens in the environment with childhood cancer," Christine Brouwer told a telephone news conference as she described losing a child to cancer.
"I'll most likely never know what caused my daughter's cancer, but researchers are finding more and more links between the hazardous substances in our homes and workplaces and cancer and other diseases."
Brouwer's daughter Mira underwent several operations and endured painful and nauseating treatments to try to beat the cancer she was diagnosed with just before her second birthday, on January 27, 2004.
After several rounds of surgery and months of treatment, Mira's cancer went into remission and she seemed to have won her fight against the ailment.
But it came back on her fourth birthday, killing her weeks later.
Her family questioned why the child was struck by such a serious illness so young, and Brouwer's suspicions turned toward the chemicals found in cleaning fluids for the floors that babies crawl on, in the plastic of the bottles they drink from and in some of the foods they and their parents eat.
Boston University professor of environmental health Richard Clapp said the incidence of childhood cancer in the United States has grown about one percent a year for the past two decades.
"It's clear that at least one component of the cause is environmental chemical exposure," he said.
Epidemiologists have linked chlorinated solvents to childhood leukemia and other solvents to brain cancer in children, said Clapp, who served as director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry for 10 years in the 1980s.
Pediatrician Sean Palfrey said doctors suspect chemicals and other environmental pollutants are behind a rise in everything from cancer to allergies to asthma in children.
"The problem with our current situation is that we are putting so many chemicals out into our environment, and our bodies have no idea how to detoxify them, don't know how to prevent them being absorbed," he said, calling for tougher US laws on chemicals.
Brouwer, Clapp and Palfrey were participating in a news conference organized by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families advocacy group, which says the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act does not cover the vast majority of chemicals in US consumer products and urgently needs an overhaul.

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COMMENT: YES, "the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act does not cover the vast majority of chemicals in US consumer products and urgently needs an overhaul", AND I am sorry this woman's daughter died.


HOWEVER... how much vit C was she getting? How much vit D? How much iodine? How much (organic) animal fat, nut fat, and fruit fat? Did she go to bed before midnight, sleep in darkness and quiet, and not get up til after dawn?

Conversely, how much grain and sugar was she consuming?
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The five most powerful heart disease prevention strategies
Dr. William Davis
The Heart Scan Blog 
Sunday, January 23, 2011

You've seen such lists before: 5 steps to prevent heart disease or some such thing. These lists usually say things like "cut your saturated fat," eat a "balanced diet" (whatever the heck that means), exercise, and don't smoke.

I would offer a different list. You already know that smoking is a supremely idiotic habit, so I won't repeat that. Here are the 5 most important strategies I know of that help you prevent heart disease and heart attack:

1) Eliminate wheat from the diet--Provided you don't do something stupid, like allow M&M's, Coca Cola, and corn chips to dominate your diet, elimination of wheat is an enormously effective means to reduce small LDL particles, reduce triglycerides, increase HDL, reduce inflammatory measures like c-reactive protein, lose weight (inflammation-driving visceral fat), reduce blood sugar, and reduce blood pressure. I know of no other single dietary strategy that packs as much punch. This has become even more true over the past 20 years, ever since the dwarf variant of modern wheat has come to dominate.

2) Achieve a desirable 25-hydroxy vitamin D level--Contrary to the inane comments of the Institute of Medicine, vitamin D supplementation increases HDL, reduces small LDL, normalizes insulin and reduces blood sugar, reduces blood pressure, and exerts potent anti-inflammatory effects on c-reactive protein, matrix metalloproteinase, and other inflammmatory mediators. While we also have drugs that mimic some of these effects, vitamin D does so without side-effects.

3) Supplement omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil--Omega-3 fatty acids reduce triglycerides, accelerate postprandial (after-meal) clearance of lipoprotein byproducts like chylomicron remnants, and have a physical stabilizing effect on atherosclerotic plaque.

4) Normalize thyroid function--Start with obtaining sufficient iodine. Iodine is not optional; it is an essential trace mineral to maintain normal thyroid function, protect the thyroid from the hundreds of thyroid disrupters in our environment (e.g., perchlorates from fertilizer residues in produce), as well as other functions such as anti-bacterial effects. Thyroid dysfunction is epidemic; correction of subtle degrees of hypothyroidism reduces LDL, reduces triglycerides, reduces small LDL, facilitates weight loss, reduces blood pressure, normalizes endothelial responses, and reduces oxidized LDL particles.

5) Make exercise fun--Not just exercise for the sake of exercise, but physical activity or exercise for the sake of having a good time. It's the difference between resigning yourself to 30 minutes of torture and boredom on the treadmill versus engaging in an activity you enjoy and look forward to: go dancing, walk with a friend, organize a paintball tournament outdoors, Zumba class, plant a new garden, etc. It's a distinction that spells the difference between finding every excuse not to do it, compared to making time for it because you enjoy it.

Note what is not on the list: cut your fat, eat more "healthy whole grains," take a cholesterol drug, take aspirin. That's the list you'd follow if you feel your hospital needs your $100,000 contribution, otherwise known as coronary bypass surgery.

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COMMENT: I think I love Dr. Davis (no homo).


Again, the Medical BUSINESS is NOT a "HEALTH care system."
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Study: Many college students not learning to think critically

By Sara Rimer, The Hechinger Report | The Hechinger Report

last updated: January 17, 2011 04:52:23 PM

NEW YORK — An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.
Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn't determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin.

Arum, whose book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" (University of Chicago Press) comes out this month, followed 2,322 traditional-age students from the fall of 2005 to the spring of 2009 and examined testing data and student surveys at a broad range of 24 U.S. colleges and universities, from the highly selective to the less selective.

Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills.
Combining the hours spent studying and in class, students devoted less than a fifth of their time each week to academic pursuits. By contrast, students spent 51 percent of their time — or 85 hours a week — socializing or in extracurricular activities.

The study also showed that students who studied alone made more significant gains in learning than those who studied in groups.

"I'm not surprised at the results," said Stephen G. Emerson, the president of Haverford College in Pennsylvania. "Our very best students don't study in groups. They might work in groups in lab projects. But when they study, they study by themselves."

The study marks one of the first times a cohort of undergraduates has been followed over four years to examine whether they're learning specific skills. It provides a portrait of the complex set of factors, from the quality of secondary school preparation to the academic demands on campus, which determine learning. It comes amid President Barack Obama's call for more college graduates by 2020 and is likely to shine a spotlight on the quality of the education they receive.

"These findings are extremely valuable for those of us deeply concerned about the state of undergraduate learning and student intellectual engagement," said Brian D. Casey, the president of DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. "They will surely shape discussions about curriculum and campus life for years to come."

Some educators note that a weakened economy and a need to work while in school may be partly responsible for the reduced focus on academics, while others caution against using the study to blame students for not applying themselves.

Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education known for his theory of multiple intelligences, said the study underscores the need for higher education to push students harder.
"No one concerned with education can be pleased with the findings of this study," Gardner said. "I think that higher education in general is not demanding enough of students — academics are simply of less importance than they were a generation ago."

But the solution, in Gardner's view, shouldn't be to introduce high-stakes tests to measure learning in college because, "The cure is likely to be worse than the disease."

Arum concluded that while students at highly selective schools made more gains than those at less selective schools, there are even greater disparities within institutions.

"In all these 24 colleges and universities, you have pockets of kids that are working hard and learning at very high rates," Arum said. "There is this variation across colleges, but even greater variation within colleges in how much kids are applying themselves and learning."

For that reason, Arum added, he hopes his data will encourage colleges and universities to look within for ways to improve teaching and learning.

Arum co-authored the book with Josipa Roksa, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. The study, conducted with Esther Cho, a researcher with the Social Science Research Council, showed that students learned more when asked to do more.

Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.
Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning. However, the authors note that their findings don't preclude the possibility that such students "are developing subject-specific or occupationally relevant skills."

Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study's authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning.
That's welcome news to liberal arts advocates.
"We do teach analytical reading and writing," said Ellen Fitzpatrick, a history professor at the University of New Hampshire.

The study used data from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a 90-minute essay-type test that attempts to measure what liberal arts colleges teach and that more than 400 colleges and universities have used since 2002. The test is voluntary and includes real world problem-solving tasks, such as determining the cause of an airplane crash, that require reading and analyzing documents from newspaper articles to government reports.

The study's authors also found that large numbers of students didn't enroll in courses requiring substantial work. In a typical semester, a third of students took no courses with more than 40 pages of reading per week. Half didn't take a single course in which they wrote more than 20 pages over the semester.
The findings show that colleges need to be acutely aware of how instruction relates to the learning of critical-thinking and related skills, said Daniel J. Bradley, the president of Indiana State University and one of 71 college presidents who recently signed a pledge to improve student learning.

"We haven't spent enough time making sure we are indeed teaching — and students are learning — these skills," Bradley said.

Christine Walker, a senior at DePauw who's also student body president, said the study doesn't reflect her own experience: She studies upwards of 30 hours a week and is confident she's learning plenty. Walker said she and her classmates are juggling multiple non-academic demands, including jobs, to help pay for their education and that in today's economy, top grades aren't enough.

"If you don't have a good resume," Walker said, "the fact that you can say, 'I wrote this really good paper that helped my critical thinking' is going to be irrelevant."


(This article was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University.) 

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COMMENT: If one standard was applied for all people, white males and Asians would be over-represented in the best schools, the good jobs, and the positions of power throughout society. 
P.S.
Howard Gardner's an idiot.
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Thirteen catheterizations later

Thirteen catheterizations later

Dr. William Davis 
The Heart Scan Blog
Thursday, January 20, 2011

When I first met her, Janet couldn't stop sobbing. She'd just been through her 10th heart catheterization in two years.

It started with chest pains at age 56, prompting her first heart catheterization that uncovered severe atherosclerotic blockages in all three coronary arteries. Her cardiologist advised a bypass operation.

Six months after the bypass operation, Janet was back with more chest pains, just as bad as before. Another heart catherization showed that two of the three bypass grafts had failed. The third bypass graft contained a severe blockage that required a stent, along with multiple stents in the two now unbypassed arteries.

In the ensuing 18 months, Janet returned for 8 additional catheterizations, each time leaving the hospital with one or more stents.

Janet's doctor was puzzled as to why her disease was progressing so aggressively despite Lipitor and the low-fat diet provided by the hospital dietitian. So he had Janet undergo lipoprotein testing (NMR):

LDL particle number: 3363 nmol/L
Small LDL particle number: 2865 nmol/L
HDL cholesterol: 32 mg/dl
Triglycerides: 344 mg/dl
Fasting blood glucose 118 mg/dl
HbA1c 5.8%

Unfortunately, Janet's doctor didn't understand what these values meant. He pretty much threw his arms up in frustration. That's when I met Janet.

From her lipoprotein panel and other values, it was clear to me that Janet was miserably carbohydrate-sensitive and carbohydrate-indulgent, as demonstrated by the extravagant quantity (2865 nmol/L) and proportion (2865/3363, or 85%) of small LDL, the form of LDL particles created by carbohydrate exposure. Janet struggled with depression over the years and had been using carbohydrate foods as "comfort" foods, often resorting to cookies, pies, cakes, breads, and other wheat-containing foods for emotional solace.

It took a bit of persuasion to convince Janet that it was low-fat, "healthy whole grains," as well as comfort foods, that had led her down this path. I also helped Janet correct her severe vitamin D deficiency, mild thyroid dysfunction, and lack of omega-3 fatty acids.

Since meeting Janet and instituting her new prevention program, she has undergone three additional catheterizations (performed by another cardiologist), all performed for chest pain symptoms that struck during periods of emotional stress. All showed . . . no significant blockage. (Apparently, the repeated "need" for stents triggered a Pavlovian response: chest pain = "need" for yet more stents.)

In short, correction of the causes of coronary atherosclerotic plaque--small LDL, vitamin D deficiency, omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, and thyroid dysfunction--and Janet's disease essentially ground to a halt.

Imagine, instead, that Janet had undergone 1) a heart scan to identify hidden coronary plaque 5-10 years before her first heart procedure, then 2) corrected the causes before they triggered symptoms and posed danger. She might have been spared an extraordinary amount of life crises, hospital procedures, expense (nearly $1 million), and emotional suffering.

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COMMENT: The Medical BUSINESS is NOT a "HEALTH care system". Capitalism is parasitism.
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Night owls may want to dim their lights 

Study finds that that night-time lighting reduces hormone associated with sleep and health

By Janet Raloff

Web edition : Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

People who spend their evenings in relatively bright light run the risk of stressing their bodies by ratcheting down the production of melatonin. Produced in the brain's pineal gland, this hormone plays a pivotal role in setting the body’s biological clock – and, potentially, in limiting the development of certain cancers. More than 100 young adults volunteered for a roughly 10-day research trial during which each took turns living in a light-controlled room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. From midnight until 8 a.m. the room was totally dark. At other times, researchers from Harvard Medical School tinkered with the room’s lighting.
On most evenings, the illumination averaged 200 lux (or roughly the brightness of a normal living room at night); on other evenings, it was no brighter than 3 lux (what might be expected from three candles burning at a distance of 1 meter.)
When their room’s lighting had been bright, the participants made, on average, 71 percent less melatonin in the hours before sleep. Their bodies also commenced production of the hormone substantially later on nights when the lighting was brighter – just 23 minutes before scheduled sleep time (midnight) versus almost 2 hours before bedtime when the lighting had been dim.
What’s more, the body didn’t fully catch up for any late start on melatonin synthesis. The day's production fell short by about 12.5 percent after an evening when the lighting was bright.
And it gets worse if people pull all-nighters, Joshua J. Gooley and his colleagues found. In a second, smaller trial involving just 12 volunteers, they let the participants spend a few days adjusting to a normal day-night lighting routine in the test room. Then came a 40-hour cycle of constant light at the 200 lux level.
Eleven people went through this ordeal once. The twelfth endured it twice. And in 11 of the 13 trials, the recruits sustained a dramatic reduction in melatonin production – of at least 51 percent; in six trials the hormone shortfall ranged from 76.9 to 92.5 percent. This experiment established that “exposure to room light in participants who were kept awake during the usual hours of sleep suppressed melatonin by more than half the amount measured during sleep in darkness,” Gooley’s team reports in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
 Their paper, slated to appear in March, has been posted early online.
“Given that chronic light suppression of melatonin has been hypothesized to increase risk for some types of cancer and that melatonin-receptor genes have been linked to type 2 diabetes, our findings could have important health implications for shift workers who are exposed to indoor light at night over the course of many years,” Gooley says.
Richard Stevens of the University of Connecticut Health Center, in Farmington, goes farther. “I think – hope – that this paper will be seen as a turning point.” For what? For the possibility that the typical nighttime illumination to which almost all people in the modern world (not just shift workers) are exposed might actually pose a health risk, especially for breast cancer.”
Until a seminal 1980 paper in Science, “it was thought that humans, unlike other animals, were insensitive to light during the night,” Stevens says. Seven years later, when he published a paper hypothesizing that light at night might foster breast cancer, plenty of people scoffed. Indeed, he recalls, “Nobody thought room light from electric bulbs was adequate to suppress melatonin.”
The JCEM paper, he says, now suggests that indoor lighting at night not only lowers melatonin, but also alters the rhythmic cycles of the body’s clock. And that, he contends, means that light at night “could be a problem for any malady for which [those] circadian rhythms might matter -- like breast cancer.”

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COMMENT: Despite the sometimes valid criticisms of Wikipedia, their article on Phase Response Curve is actually quite good. Basically, dim light two hours before bedtime, sleep in complete darkness, then bright light within the two hours after you get up. The link in that article to light therapy may be helpful.
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Fox shoots man

– Thu Jan 13, 2:50 pm ET MOSCOW (Reuters) – A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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COMMENT: Humans are predator animals; we have eyes in the front of our heads - giving up wider field of vision for depth perception - and, although we eat some plant food, we definitely need to eat some animal food to be healthy. PREDATORS ARE NOT PREY. Hunting foxes - our fellow predator animals - is COMPLETELY unacceptable.


Those who cannot tell the difference between predators and prey are not fit for existence.


P.S.
Yeah, keep telling yourself it was "accidentally", asshole.
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Cause of schizophrenia found?

Press Trust Of India
Posted on Jan 12, 2011 at 03:07pm IST

 

Washington: In what could be a possible cause of schizophrenia, scientists claim to have found a link between the condition and trapped brain cells that are unable to reach the cortex, the brain's outer part.

A new study, led by University of New South Wales, has claimed that brain cells might become "stuck" in their journey during brain development to the outer "thinking" layer of the brain, which could be a cause of schizophrenia.

The scientists have found that in people with schizophrenia, brain cells destined for the cortex - the outer part of the brain associated with thinking and other cognitive abilities - could get trapped in the layer below.

"We think brain cells might be trapped while in the process of migrating to the cortex while the brain develops. This process of neuronal migration to the cortex doesn't stop at birth. It's robust in infants and may continue in teenage

years and beyond.

"We know that brain development is derailed somehow in people with schizophrenia, and this study helps us understand how," said lead scientist Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert.

The next step is to understand why these neurons are failing to complete their journey to the cortex, according to the scientists.

"Then maybe we can develop a therapy that encourages the neurons to keep moving to the finish line. Our hope is that this would reduce symptoms or even prevent schizophrenia from developing at all," she said.

The findings have been published in the latest edition of the 'Biological Psychiatry' journal. 

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COMMENT: Oh, Jesus Christ. 

FIRST, Drs. Abram Hoffer and Carl Pfeiffer already found the causeS and cureS of the schizophreniaS back in the 1960's and 1970's. Niacin, vit C, and either a low- or high-copper diet (as appropriate in each case) are proven safe and effective. The Medical BUSINESS is threatened by nutrition, and simply lies about it.

SECOND, some of the people who develop schizophrenia are those who could become shamans; when they show this "developmental potential", the Control System freaks out. Hence, the desperate attempt to prevent it from happening. The U.S.A., for example, is a tribe of over 300 million - and zero shamans; no wonder everyone's going insane.

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Fla. jogger won't be charged for shooting teen

– Wed Jan 12, 6:39 am ET

TAMPA, Fla. – A pistol-packing jogger in Florida won't be charged for shooting and killing a teenager who attacked him during a midnight run.
Prosecutors said Tuesday they are convinced Thomas Baker acted in self defense when he fired eight shots at 18-year-old Carlos Mustelier near Tampa in November .
Prosecutors say Florida's "stand-your-ground" law was a factor in their decision. The law, passed in 2005, gives people the right to use deadly force as long as they "reasonably believe" it is necessary to stop another person from hurting them.
Baker told police he reached for his gun when the teen punched him in the face. Baker has a concealed weapons permit.
The teen was hit four times in the chest, back and buttocks. He died at the scene.

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COMMENT: Awesome!
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Loughner's friend: ‘Jared needed help and Jared didn't get help’ 

Alleged shooter had lately become aggressive, high school pal says

NBC News and news services

Zane Gutierrez, who befriended the alleged Tucson shooter while they attended high school, said he was stunned by the news that his former buddy was the suspect in the bloody attack that left six people dead last weekend.

"It was mortifying, it was horrifying. I ended up sitting in my car for about four hours by myself," he told NBC's TODAY show on Wednesday.
Something about Jared Loughner, identified as the gunman in last weekend’s shootings spree that killed six, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, began to change recently, Gutierrez said.

"At first Jared was a very receptive person, he was always interested in hearing a new concept, a new idea," Gutierrez said. That changed and lately he had become more aggressive. "He would start yelling, 'No! You're wrong! You're stupid!" Loughner’s friend said.
Anger at Giffords When Loughner, 22, first talked to Gutierrez about his first encounter with Giffords it seemed nothing was amiss. Giffords, 40, continued to recover at the University of Arizona Medical Center five days after being shot in the head.
"He only brought it up once and it never seemed like something that bothered him that much," Gutierrez told TODAY.
But looking back Gutierrez said he sees that the Congresswoman’s inability to answer what even friends thought was a confusing question had troubled the increasingly unbalanced young man. 
"For some reason he felt that his representative … had failed him in some way, shape or form and it really let him down on a personal level," Gutierrez said.

In the end, Loughner was mentally unwell and did not receive proper treatment, Gutierrez said.
"Jared needed help and Jared didn't get help," he said. "The difference with the picture that's going around now with the shaved head, that's not Jared Loughner, that's not my friend, that's a monster."

'Blood libel'
Meantime, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has waded into the debate about whether heated political rhetoric was behind the shooting.
The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate on Wednesday condemned those who blame political rhetoric for the Arizona the attack in a nearly eight-minute video on her Facebook page .

Last spring, Palin targeted Giffords' district as one of 20 that should be taken back. Palin has been criticized for marking each district with the cross hairs of a gun sight.
As a tragedy unfolded, journalists and pundits should not manufacture what she called a "blood libel" that incites hatred and violence.
Palin said she had "listened at first puzzled, then with concern and now with sadness to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event."
The horror of the shooting has touched a national nerve, spurring calls for political rhetoric to be toned down and energizing debates about gun ownership. It has also made gun-friendly Arizona, and Tucson in particular, appear to be a battlefield. 
...

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COMMENT: FIRST, intelligent, curious, and gentle in HS; then from ages 18-22 he got more and more out of sync with society, to the point that his speech became unintelligible. This appears to be a textbook onset of schizophrenia. Maybe as little as 100 mg of niacin (and perhaps a low- or high-copper diet, whichever was appropriate for him) could have prevented this tragedy; but no, the MEDICAL BUSINESS would rather KILL innocent people than give up some potential profit.

SECOND, Sarah Palin says that some Democrats need to be "taken out" (complete with map on her FB page with crosshairs), then when some people dare to publicize her having done so, SHE accuses THEM of "incit(ing) hatred and violence"... thereby ONCE AGAIN exhibiting one of the hallmarks of the psychopath.
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Interior Minister Says Wikileaks-case is “Odd and Grave”

 

In an interview with mbl.is Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson said that at first sight the case of US authorities against Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir seems to be “very odd and grave.” He said that at this stage he can’t express himself on the case but hopes to get information from Jónsdóttir.

 

Jónasson said: “Of course it is a very serious matter, if a demand has been put forward that she submit personal information to US authrities. She is an Icelandic member of Althingi and furthermore a member of the Foreign Relations committee of Althingi.”
Jónasson continued: “The information from Wikileaks and others have only hurt people who work behind the scenes. I think that if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good.”

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COMMENT: People who are ACTUALLY good don't have to hide what they're REALLY doing.
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US says too much fluoride causing splotchy teeth

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer – Fri Jan 7, 6:55 pm ET

ATLANTA – In a remarkable turnabout, federal health officials say many Americans are getting too much fluoride, and it's causing spots on children's teeth and perhaps other, more serious problems.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans Friday to lower the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water for the first time in nearly 50 years, based on a fresh review of the science.
The announcement is likely to renew the battle over fluoridation, even though the addition of fluoride to drinking water is considered one of the greatest public health successes of the 20th century. The U.S. prevalence of decay in at least one tooth among teens has declined from about 90 percent to 60 percent.
The government first began urging municipal water systems to add fluoride in the early 1950s. Since then, it has been put in toothpaste and mouthwash. It is also in a lot of bottled water and in soda. Some kids even take fluoride supplements. Now, young children may be getting too much.
"Like anything else, you can have too much of a good thing," said Dr. Howard Pollick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco's dental school and spokesman for the American Dental Association.
One reason behind the change: About 2 out of 5 adolescents have tooth streaking or spottiness because of too much fluoride, a government study found recently. In extreme cases, teeth can be pitted by the mineral — though many cases are so mild only dentists notice it. The problem is generally considered cosmetic and not a reason for serious concern.
The splotchy tooth condition, fluorosis, is unexpectedly common in youngsters ages 12 through 15 and appears to have grown more common since the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But there are also growing worries about more serious dangers from fluoride.
The Environmental Protection Agency released two new reviews of research on fluoride Friday. One of the studies found that prolonged, high intake of fluoride can increase the risk of brittle bones, fractures and crippling bone abnormalities.
Critics of fluoridated water seized on the proposed change Friday to renew their attacks on it — a battle that dates back to at least the Cold War 1950s, when it was denounced by some as a step toward Communism. Many activists nowadays don't think fluoride is essential, and they praised the government's new steps.
"Anybody who was anti-fluoride was considered crazy," said Deborah Catrow, who successfully fought a ballot proposal in 2005 that would have added fluoride to drinking water in Springfield, Ohio. "It's amazing that people have been so convinced that this is an OK thing to do."
Dental and medical groups applauded the announcement.
"This change is necessary because Americans have access to more sources of fluoride than they did when water fluoridation was first introduced," Dr. O. Marion Burton, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.
The fluoridated water standard since 1962 has been a range of 0.7 parts per million for warmer climates where people used to drink more water to 1.2 parts per million in cooler regions. The new proposal from HHS would set the recommended level at just 0.7. Meanwhile, the EPA said it is reviewing whether to lower the maximum allowable level of fluoride in drinking water from the current 4 parts per million.
"EPA's new analysis will help us make sure that people benefit from tooth decay prevention while at the same time avoiding the unwanted health effects from too much fluoride," said Peter Silva, an EPA assistant administrator.
Fluoride is a mineral that exists in water and soil. About 70 years ago, scientists discovered that people whose supplies naturally had more fluoride also had fewer cavities.
In 1945, Grand Rapids, Mich., became the world's first city to add fluoride to its drinking water. Six years later a study found a dramatic decline in tooth decay among children there, and the surgeon general endorsed water fluoridation.
And in 1955, Procter & Gamble Co. marketed the first fluoride toothpaste, Crest, with the slogan "Look, Mom, no cavities!"
But that same year, The New York Times called fluoridation of public water one of the country's "fiercest controversies." The story said some opponents called the campaign for fluoridation "the work of Communists who want to soften the brains of the American people."
The battles continue for a variety of reasons today.
In New York, the village of Cobleskill outside Albany stopped adding fluoride to its drinking water in 2007 after the longtime water superintendent became convinced the additive was contributing to his knee problems. Two years later, the village reversed the move after dentists and doctors complained.
According to a recent CDC report, nearly 23 percent of children ages 12 to 15 had fluorosis in a study done in 1986-87. That rose to 41 percent in a study that covered 1999 through 2004.
"I think most of the problem is not from the fluoride in water, it's from other sources, children swallowing fluoride toothpaste or eating it," said Susan Jeansonne, oral health program manager for Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
Toothpaste labels have long recommended that parents supervise children under 6 when they are brushing their teeth; give them only a pea-size amount; and make sure they spit it out — not swallow it. Toddlers under 2 shouldn't use toothpaste with fluoride.
In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences released a report recommending that the EPA lower its maximum allowable level of fluoride in drinking water. The report warned severe fluorosis could occur at 2 parts per million. Also, a majority of the report's authors said a lifetime of drinking water with fluoride at 4 parts per million or higher could raise the risk of broken bones. 
In addition, in 2005, the heads of 11 EPA unions, including ones representing the agency's scientists, pleaded with the EPA to reduce the permissible level of fluoride in water to zero, citing research suggesting it can cause cancer.
In Europe, fluoride is rarely added to water supplies. In Britain, only about 10 percent of the population has fluoridated water. It has been a controversial issue there, with critics arguing people shouldn't be forced to have "medical treatment" forced on them.
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Associated Press writers Dina Capiello in Washington, Maria Cheng in London, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, David B. Caruso in New York, and Mary Foster in New Orleans contributed to this report, along with AP news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York.

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COMMENT: Brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste - and then spitting it out again - HAS been shown to reduce cavities.


 HOWEVER, the INGESTION of ANY amount of fluoride has NEVER been shown to reduce cavities, or have any beneficial effect on humans, and has been known to be toxic for over fifty years. See The Fuoride Deception by Christopher Bryson; comprehensive and incontrovertible.

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How women suffer 'double-shift' of stress at home AND work

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:24 AM on 31st December 2010

Women are locked into a ‘double-shift’ of home and work – both roles leaving them suffering with more symptoms of stress than men.
The double whammy of pressure means that women show the classic symptoms of stress – back and neck pain – far more than men, even when physical causes are removed, research has revealed.
The four-year study focused on two groups of men and women – one students, the other workers – in an effort to isolate possible causes of stress.

A double whammy of pressure means women show the classic symptoms of stress ¿ back and neck pain ¿ far more than men

In both groups, women showed the symptoms of stress more than men.
In the student group, women students showed more neck pain, and amongst the workforce, whose jobs mostly involved work on computers, women showed more of both back and neck pain, experts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden found.
In both the computer users and the students, neck pain was affected by psychosocial factors, the experts said. Commenting on the findings, Professor Cary Cooper, organisational psychologist at Lancaster University, said: ‘In nearly every developed country women perform what we call the double-shift.
‘They go to work like a man but then also come home and perform the primary role at home, so face double pressure from those two roles.’
One of the academics, Anna Grimby-Ekman, said: ‘The results [in the student group] were a surprise as we had expected roughly the same number of women as men would develop neck pain in a young group like this, where the majority had yet to start a family.’
Professor Cooper said: ‘For female students there is the added pressure of having to compete in a man’s world and be better than men to land top positions in their fields.’

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COMMENT: Most women should not be going to work "like a man", should not be competing against men, and should not be trying to "land top positions" in "their" fields. Feminism is NOT "human rights for women" (that is correctly called "humanism"); feminism is an attack on heterosexuality. (It also - by flooding the job market with millions of women - helps further the wealth disparity.)

P.S.

That girl is HOT.

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Census: Number of poor may be millions higher

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Hope Yen, Associated Press – Wed Jan 5, 3:12 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday.
At the same time, government aid programs such as tax credits and food stamps kept many people out of poverty, helping to ensure the poverty rate did not balloon even higher during the recession in 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.

Under a new revised census formula, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people. That's compared to the official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that was reported by the Census Bureau last September.
Across all demographic groups, Americans 65 and older sustained the largest increases in poverty under the revised formula — nearly doubling to 16.1 percent. As a whole, working-age adults 18-64 also saw increases in poverty, as well as whites and Hispanics. Children, blacks and unmarried couples were less likely to be considered poor under the new measure.
Due to new adjustments for geographical variations in costs of living, people residing in the suburbs, the Northeast and West were the regions mostly likely to have poor people — nearly 1 in 5 in the West.

The new measure will not replace the official poverty rate but will be published alongside the traditional figure this fall as a "supplement" for federal agencies and state governments to determine anti-poverty policies. Economists have long criticized the official poverty measure as inadequate because it only includes pretax cash income and does not account for medical, transportation and work expenses.
"Under the new measure, we can clearly see the effects of our government policies," said Kathleen Short, a Census Bureau research economist who calculated the revised poverty numbers. "When you're accounting for in-kind benefits and tax credits, you're bringing many people in extreme poverty off the very bottom."
The official measure is based on a 1955 cost of an emergency food diet and does not factor in other living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income, which surged higher in 2009 during the recession.
Short's analysis, published Wednesday as part of a series of census working papers on poverty, shows that out-of-pocket medical expenses had a significant impact in affecting the number of poor — without those costs, poverty would have dropped from 15.7 percent to 12.4 percent.

The effect was seen most notably among older Americans. Under the official poverty rate, about 8.9 percent lived in poverty, mostly because they benefit from Social Security cash payments. But when taking into account out-of-pocket medical expenses and other factors, that number rises to 16.1 percent.

The numbers cited for 2009 are preliminary, but census officials say they offer a good representative look at the state of U.S. poverty and where the numbers are headed when new 2010 figures are released this fall.
Among the findings:
_Transportation, commuting and child care costs weigh on working-age Americans. The official poverty rate for those ages 18 to 64 is currently 12.9 percent, the highest since 1960s levels that launched the war on poverty. Under the revised formula, working-age poverty increases even higher, to 14.8 percent.
_Without the earned income tax credit, the poverty rate under the revised formula would jump from 15.7 percent to 17.7 percent. The absence of food stamps separately would increase the poverty rate to 17.2 percent.
_Taking into account millions of uninsured people in the U.S. had little effect in increasing poverty, mostly because those without insurance tend to forgo medical care rather than find ways to pay for it. Those with government-sponsored insurance generally saw decreases in poverty under the new formula, while those with employer-provided coverage saw increases. Still overall poverty for those with public insurance vs. employer insurance was higher, 31.1 percent compared to 7.2 percent.
_Under the revised formula, the West had the most people in poverty at 19.2 percent. It was followed by the South (16.1 percent), the Northeast (14.3 percent) and the Midwest (12.5 percent).
The supplemental figures could take on added significance at a time when many in the government point to an overhaul of Medicare and Social Security as the best hope for reducing the ballooning federal debt. With the potential to add more older Americans to the ranks of the poor, the numbers may underscore a need for continued — if not expanded — old-age benefits as a government safety net.

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COMMENT: This article is what's known as a "limited hang-out" (thanks to Jon Rapoport for the concept). In reality, MORE THAN HALF of U.S. citizens were ACTUALLY poor (note the repeated use of the term "official" poverty rate above) BEFORE the financial crisis (referred to by corporate whore Hope Yen as "the recession in 2009"); that has since jumped to 90%. 


Even admitting the disparities in income is misleading. The richest one percent OWN 50% of the nation's WEALTH; the top 10% OWN 90% of the nation's WEALTH. That leaves 10% of all the WEALTH in "the most affluent nation" spread out over the bottom 90%. Human food, reliable transportation, a home in good repair in a safe neighborhood, and the ever-mentioned health care don't cost less just because you don't have enough money. When people who have SOME INCOME but NO WEALTH suddenly lose that income, they IMMEDIATELY move from the "middle class" category to POOR.
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Privatizing Social Security Again? 

By Helen Thomas
Thursday, January 06 2011 08:00:00 AM
This year, 2011, marks the beginning of baby boomers receiving Social Security checks and they should be alerted of past perennial Republican attempts to partially privatize the program. Heaven forbid that plans prevail to invest a certain amount of those checks in the stock market, as many pension plans have taken a bath in the current meltdown. While there have been past GOP plans to partially privatize the program, fortunately they have all failed. So far the Social Security trust fund remains tempting for the gamblers and other risk takers on the market. As a Detroiter, I remember the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1929 when some of the plutocrats on Wall Street jumped out of windows as a result of their great losses. Those were bleak days when some of the jobless workers also lost hope in the bitterly cold winter as they stood in long lines at the Ford Motor Company, many without overcoats, hoping for a job on the auto assembly lines. The movements for socialism and communism were given some credence as a way out of their misery. The difference between the Great Depression and the current Great Recession is "spirit" - during the 1930s Americans cared about each other. They flocked to Washington - teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses - selflessly offering their services. Next door to us, a family with six children lived on a $13 (equivalent to $163 today) per week welfare check. Somehow they survived and kept their faith. Along came FDR who told the stricken people, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself." The power of hope restored confidence in the country and in its leadership.

We were happy to emerge from the depression, but many Americans at the time believed we rebounded economically because of the looming clouds of World War II. The world by this time was swept up by the "isms." The U.S. was divided between the interventionists in World War II (on the side of the allies) and the non-interventionists - they were the isolationists - who disappeared at the start of the war on Dec. 7, 1941. President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935 to cover the elderly, and eventually through amendments, widows, orphans and the disabled. Payments are split 50-50 by the employer and the worker. What has been missing in our current society is compassion and creativeness. Think of the bargains the President had to strike to renew the biggest (Bush) tax cut to the richest Americans, this in exchange for an extension of unemployment compensation for the millions who lost their jobs - some deal! That's the compassion part.
As for creativeness, where are the ideas to put people back to work? For Roosevelt, the caring advisors produced a bundle of alphabet agencies. Not the least was the Works Progress Administration which put people to work on rebuilding the broken infrastructure. The program put men on the streets - and even artists painting the walls of great buildings in the Nation's Capital. Ideas and ideals along with great imagination brought our country back. Where are the caring creators now?
Many believe it was World War II and the military needs that brought us back - but recovery was well underway by 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. According to the 2010 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds presented to Congress, 53 million Americans received benefits during 2009, including 36 million retired workers and dependents of retired workers, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 10 million disabled workers. During that same year, an estimated 156 million people paid social security taxes through payroll. Total expenditures in 2009 were $686 billion, while revenue totaled $807 billion - including $689 in tax revenue and $118 billion in interest earnings.
Many Republicans believe the Social Security Trust should be at least partly privatized - Bush failed to achieve this in 2005. There is fear as President Obama has claimed that the new Republican leadership will push again to partially privatize social security funds. With the ups and downs of the stock market - and considering the pension plans that were privatized went down the drain - who would lead us down that path again?
Let's not give the newly empowered Republicans - and their blindsided tea party allies - the ability to wipe out or even mitigate the only economic security deprived Americans can count on. Where is their heart?
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COMMENT: The push to privatize Social Security is 100% about DESTROYING the Middle Class in America. It is not about ANYTHING else.
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