Wellness

(NaturalNews) Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the United States, with the average resident consuming 4.1 pounds per year. But this food comes at a serious cost for the planet and for human health, warns Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.

"Unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world's productive ecosystems," Richardson writes on Alternet.org. "Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of 'sustainable shrimp' are so far nonexistent."

Like all seafood, shrimp are wild animals, and many are still caught in the wild. Nearly all shrimp fishing in the world, however, is performed with the highly destructive technique known as trawling: Fishermen attach weighted nets the size of football fields to their boats, then drag them along the ocean floor scooping up all life in their path.

This method produces pounds of so-called "bycatch" for every pound of shrimp caught, killing non-commercial (and often endangered) species such as sharks, rays, sea turtles and juvenile red snapper in massive numbers. In fact, although only 2 percent of the world's fish catch is composed of shrimp, one-third of its bycatch comes from shrimp fishing.

Trawling also devastates marine habitats such as coral reefs and the ocean floor -- where 98 percent of all ocean life lives. The mud plumes stirred up by trawling are large enough to be visible from space.

"Trawling is comparable to bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one species of bird," Richardson writes.

Even farmed shrimp are not bycatch free, since they are fed primarily from wild fish -- roughly 1.4 pounds per pound of farmed shrimp. Thus, even the most sustainably farmed shrimp from closed, inland pools still come with a hefty ecological cost.

Most farmed shrimp, of course, do not come from the above best case scenario. Shrimp farms are responsible for the destruction of 38 percent of the world's unique and crucial mangrove habitats. For example, fully 70 percent of all Ecuadorian mangroves have been destroyed for shrimp farming.

Ninety-three percent of Ecuadorian shrimp is exported to the United States.

Coastal mangroves are highly diverse ecosystems that play critical roles in carbon sequestration and protecting inland habitats and communities from storm and tsunami damage. Because of their productivity and location, mangroves make ideal shrimp farming territory. As a consequence, many shrimp farmers simply clear-cut a section of mangroves and close it off from the ocean with nets.

"In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain," Richardson writes. "Even after the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back."

Shrimp consumers may also pay a more personal cost: Shrimp ponds are regularly treated with toxic chemicals such as with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, in addition to pesticides and piscicides such as chlorine and retenone. In many farms, the shrimp are treated before sale with Borax, caustic soda and the suspected neurotoxin sodium tripolyphosphate.

It's not just chemicals that consumers have to worry about. Widespread antibiotic use in fish farming produces, paradoxically, shrimp with high concentrations of bacteria. A recent test of imported ready-to-eat shrimp found it to be contaminated with 162 different species of bacteria that were collectively resistant to a total of 10 different antibiotics.

Richardson has few suggestions to make for those who wish to consume sustainably produced shrimp. Because of the prevalence of trawling, she suggests avoiding all wild-caught shrimp. Yet no certification process exists to ensure the sustainability of farmed shrimp.

"Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp?" she asks.

"Currently, it's near impossible."

Sources for this story include: www.alternet.org/food/145369/shrimp's_dirty_secrets:_why_america's_favorite_seafood_is_a_health_and_environmental_nightmare.

Patrick Hughes is a young man with a rare musical talent. When asked how he could possibly accomplish what he does despite his disabilities, he replies that he doesn’t have dis-abilities, he just has abilities…

By Dr. Mercola

We are at a critical time in the fight against mercury fillings.

Thanks to your efforts at making your voice heard, on July 15, 2010, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chose a mercury-free dentist by the name of Michael Fleming to be on the Dental Products Panel, which will be the group to reassess the safety of mercury fillings for high-risk groups by way of a hearing this December.

Dr. Fleming has an interesting and varied professional background, with a long track record of listening to consumers.

As we move toward the December hearing, we need your continuing letters and phone calls to the FDA. Although the panel selection process is complete, they need to continue hearing your voice. We must show them there is a large body of consumers out there who are keeping an eye on them — like hawks.

According to the FDA’s website, this panel’s purpose is defined as follows:

“The Dental Products Panel reviews and evaluates data concerning the safety and effectiveness of marketed and investigational products for use in dentistry, endodontics or bone physiology relative to the oral and maxillofacial area and makes appropriate recommendations to the Commissioner of Food and Drugs.”

This hearing will hopefully bring us one step closer to the banning of amalgam fillings for children and pregnant women, and eventually for the rest of us.

Children and fetuses, whose brains are still developing, are most at risk for mercury-related neurological damage, and that is why it’s especially dangerous for pregnant women to get amalgam fillings.

FDA Stacks the Deck in its Favor by Appointing Pro-Industry “Experts”

The appointment of Dr. Michael Fleming is a big deal because the FDA has a history of stacking the deck of its panels so that the pro-industry position is upheld.

Indeed, before consumers spoke up, Center for Devices Director Jeffrey Shuren had already been doing just that, even having the gall to appoint an American Dental Association (ADA) leader named Dr. Amid Ismail, who has repeatedly testified in favor of amalgam in both federal and local government hearings.

Ismail is such an extremist that he has actually stated that the choice of filling material rests with the dentist, not the consumer whose mouth it is going into. So now a leading opponent of mercury-free dentistry in previous hearings has become the judge, thanks to FDA’s Shuren.

The FDA also has a history of ignoring its panelists’ advice if it doesn’t uphold the pro-industry position, even to the point of disagreeing with their own FDA scientific experts. This is precisely what happened in 2009 with their disappointing "final rule."

For policy change to occur, it is crucial that this panel NOT be exclusively represented by dental school deans and others with ties to the pro-mercury American Dental Association.

If the FDA is to have any credibility at all, it needs all sides fairly represented and heard, with equal time for hearing both sides of the issue.

This is a critical time for you to make your wishes known. Between now and December, the more pressure they receive from YOU, the less likely they’ll be stacking the decks in their favor. Later in this article, I will give you some specific questions to pose in your communication with the FDA.

Facts About Mercury That May Shock You

Mercury pollution is growing across the globe.

In the words of Charlie Brown, President of the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, “Amalgam is a “primitive, polluting, 19th century product that began when physicians were sawing off legs. Medicine has since moved forward.”

Consider these disturbing facts:

• Amalgam is the MOST EXPENSIVE dental material when you count environmental costs and clean-up costs.
• Amalgam is the number one cause of mercury exposure for consumers, according to the Canadian government and other sources.
• Mercury from dental offices is the largest source of mercury in wastewater. According to an article by Michael Bender (co-founder of the Mercury Policy Project), at least 40 percent of mercury flowing into municipal water treatment plants begins in dentist offices. And those plants are not set up to remove it, so it ends up in your fish.
• Americans and Europeans have more mercury in their mouths than exists in all products combined—more than 1,000 tons.
• Amalgams of the dead post a risk to the living. Emissions from the combustion of mercury fillings during cremation are a significant contaminator of air, waterways, soil, wildlife and food. Seven to nine metric tons of mercury per year escapes into the atmosphere during cremations, and it is estimated that, left unchecked, crematoria will be the largest single cause of mercury pollution by 2020.

There are numerous zoning battles in the U. S. to keep crematoria away from schools, including one in South Carolina. In Sweden, it is mandatory that teeth be extracted prior to cremation.

• Some dentists, who have easy access to mercury-containing dental materials, sell mercury at a premium to third world countries, which then use it in mining and industrial operations, contributing to the mercury pollution problem.
• Since the FDA does not regulate dentists, dentists remain free to offer you any kind of filing they want. According to a survey, 52 percent of all dentists nationwide report they are no longer placing amalgams in their patients’ mouths.

However, specialists are far more likely to still be using mercury fillings — four out of five still place amalgams.

The FDA is Far Behind the Rest of the World on Amalgams

President Obama has made it clear that he is very concerned about mercury pollution worldwide, and early in his term, he reversed the Bush position that opposed legally binding measures to control mercury.

In February of 2009, Obama endorsed negotiations for a new global treaty to on mercury pollution. The most important issue today in the amalgam battle centers on this upcoming world mercury treaty.

The United Nations has convened a series of conferences to put together the environmental treaty on mercury, a treaty that represents a chance for the world to rid itself of amalgam, and rid dentistry of mercury. The first session was in June of 2010, and there will be five more over the next three years. (View the first session report here.) The next treaty session is in Tokyo, Japan, January 24-28, 2011.

The end-goal is the signing of a legally binding mercury treaty in 2013.

The treaty’s central question: What are we going to do about the ever-growing problem of worldwide mercury contamination?

According to Charlie Brown, who gave the opening statement at the treaty’s first meeting, the FDA is far behind the rest of the world in stepping up to the plate to reduce mercury. The FDA has been standing in the way of banning these dangerous dental materials for 34 years — since 1976.

For a country that is supposed to be so scientifically advanced, the U.S. is lagging behind the rest of the world, and even behind some third world countries:

• Canada advised dentists to stop placing amalgam in children and pregnant women in 1996—fifteen years ago!
• Denmark, Norway and Sweden have essentially banned amalgams.
• There are 5,636 hospitals in developing countries that are committed to or already mercury-free. The majority of these are in the Philippines, India, and Argentina.

Pro-Mercury Forces Banking on Exemption for Amalgam

The goal of the mercury treaty is, ideally, ending all man-made mercury. As with any treaty, the key is what goes into the fine print.

The pro-mercury forces, led by the World Dental Federation and the American Dental Association, are asking for an exemption so they may keep selling amalgam indefinitely. The FDA has now expanded its agenda from being chief protector of amalgam in the United States, to attempting to block world action against amalgam.

So they sent a representative to the July 2010 UN conference in Stockholm to lobby AGAINST a phase-out of mercury fillings.

Additionally, the World Dental Federation is trying to make amalgams the world’s “filling of choice,” which would lead to millions of children worldwide being exposed to mercury’s toxic effects, many in developing countries where their immune systems are already weakened due to suboptimal living conditions and cavities are commonplace.

To counter these pro-mercury forces, the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry fought back hard and secured a seat at the Stockholm negotiating session, and Charlie Brown gave the opening statement, which you can view in the video above.

Clashes Over Mercury Began During the Civil War

Why do pro-mercury dentists resist change so vociferously? Such resistance is not unprecedented -- not al all.

According to Charlie G. Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice, during the American Civil War, mercury’s use was prevalent, and even then controversial. Physicians in that era used it to treat soldiers for dysentery, typhoid, malaria, pneumonia, and syphilis.

But some physicians opposed mercury.

An early hero of the mercury-free movement was the Surgeon General, William A. Hammond. Hammond banned its use by Army physicians, and immediately, the medical establishment started calling for his ouster. The American Medical Association defeated Hammond, but ultimately lost. Today, the Civil War use of mercury as a tonic is considered practically deranged.

According to Brown:

“Future generations not only will condemn the American Dental Association for implanting a neurotoxin into the human body, but no doubt they will resent cleaning up after the irresponsible dentists who polluted our planet with mercury.

However, like Surgeon General Hammond, we now have the opportunity to stand up publicly against mercury abusers. Then it was the medical establishment; today it is the dental establishment.”

And also the FDA …

Why is the FDA the World’s Pariah on the Mercury Issue?

Why is the FDA so obstinate on amalgam, when it won’t even allow farmers to rub mercury-containing lotions on the legs of horses? It certainly isn’t representing public interest when, 7 to 1, the public wants a ban on mercury fillings.

• First, the FDA is not so much a regulator of big business as its protector.
• Second, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg has an egregious conflict of interest on amalgam, yet participated in the rule making. Hamburg entered the FDA through the revolving door after making millions as the director of Henry Schein Inc., the largest seller of amalgam.

The FDA endorses a two-tiered system of dentistry: America’s elite no longer receives amalgam, but the rest of us are at risk simply by being in a dental office. Dental employees are at even greater risk due to their daily mercury exposure.

The FDA is so much in the pocket of corporate America that it not only allows mercury-based dental filling to be implanted in children and pregnant women, but it covers up the very fact that these fillings contain mercury.

And the FDA’s rule ignores the fact that Americans are getting mercury from so many other sources (vaccines, fish and seafood, household products, paints, pesticides, etc.) that many teenagers and adults are saturated with these neurotoxins.

The Issue of Informed Consent

One of Dr. Fleming’s greatest concerns in the overall amalgam issue involves the lack of informed consent obtained from patients prior to installing mercury fillings in their mouths.

One Dental Products Panel member remarked:

“I think the major thread, or the take-home message that I have, is that the Federal Government and the agencies need to force dentists to provide informed consent to the patient, and making sure that the patient is going to be well-informed, and making their appropriate decision toward the use of this material.

Having said that, I don’t know what would be the mechanism, whether ADA has to step forward, or the federal agencies. I leave it as a question open at this point. But something has to be done.”

Not only is informed consent not given, but the industry has gone so far as to disguise the name of mercury fillings in a way that misguides you into thinking they are something else.

The very name “silver fillings” would seem to imply they are made of silver, whereas they are more than 50 percent mercury. When confronted about this, the industry’s response is a lame one... the term “silver” is meant to denote the color, not the constitution.

In reality, only one in four people is aware that silver amalgams contain mercury, and the dental industry is capitalizing on that ignorance. Even when the manufacturer places warnings on the label of the amalgam material, a dentist is under no obligation to relay that information to you. More than 90 percent of you believe dentists should be required to inform you about mercury fillings versus non-toxic alternatives.

Is there any way this evil behemoth can be defeated?

Our Secret Weapon: Using the FDA and EPA Turf Wars to our Advantage

You may not be aware of the administrative turf war inside the U.S. government.

This Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeks aggressive action against amalgam as well as other mercury products. The FDA takes the opposite tack on amalgam, wanting its use in perpetuity.

So far, the FDA has had the upper hand.

The FDA admits it has NO expertise or jurisdiction over the environmental impact of mercury.

But the FDA is so intent on protecting amalgam sellers that it is elbowing out the EPA and demanding its way. The FDA is a know-nothing on environmental issues, and admits it. Never having gotten involved in environmental regulatory issues before, the FDA is being a dog-in-a-manger in order to protect the amalgam profiteers.

Once Sweden and Norway realized the environmental impact of amalgam, they banned the product entirely.

To protect corporate interests, FDA is doing everything in its power to prevent the environmental experts from revealing to the public the extensive environmental costs inflicted by amalgam.

So, the key to winning a ban on amalgams is to make it an integral part of the argument for reducing environmental mercury.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Demand that the FDA Join the World in Protecting Pregnant Women and Children From Mercury Exposure

The stakes could not be higher right now for mercury policy.

Consumer advocates need YOUR help now, more than ever. The more pressure the FDA gets from ordinary citizens like you, the less it will be able to wiggle out of its responsibilities for protecting the public. But we all have to raucously demand it if we hope to overcome the tremendous pressure from the other side.

Consumers for Dental Choice

One of the greatest advocates for change has been Consumers for Dental Choice, tireless consumer advocates for victims of mercury poisoning and key players in educating the public.

Charlie Brown is national counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice, and in June he was elected President of the new World Alliance for Mercury Free Dentistry.

Charlie’s work focuses on petitioning federal and state agencies to do their duties under the law. He spearheads the national campaign to expose the deceptive practices of the American Dental Association. Without his extensive help, this article would not have been possible, for which I am very grateful.

You can take the following actions if you wish to actively promote policy change:

1. Contact Jeffrey Shuren, Director of the FDA’s Center for Devices. Voice your concern that their Dental Products Panel be fair and balanced, as opposed to overrepresented by individuals with industry ties. Demand that the individual presenters (who are named as experts by the FDA), both those who are pro-amalgam and those who are anti-amalgam, have equal time to speak.

   Dr. Jeffrey Shuren
   301-796-5900
   Jeff.Shuren@fda.hhs.gov
   
   

Ask him the following questions:

• Why won’t FDA require labels to inform consumers that amalgam is 50 percent mercury?
• Why won’t FDA at least ban amalgam for children and pregnant women, who are at greatest risk?
• Why is Dr. Ismail on the dental products panel when he has repeatedly advocated that amalgam is safe, even testifying in favor of amalgam on behalf of the ADA?

If at all possible, attend the FDA hearing in December:

December 14 and 15, 2010, 8am -6pm
Holiday Inn-Gaithersburg, Main Ballroom
2 Montgomery Village Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20879

The FDA will not be expecting a forceful turnout, especially from ordinary citizens, so we can surprise them with a show of force and dogged determination.

Even if you cannot attend the hearing, make sure to submit your comments to the panel for the record. You can submit your comments in two ways:

1. Submit them online at this site.
2. Submit them by mail to:

   
   Division of Documents Management, Food and Drug Administration
   5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
   Rockville, MD 20852

Label all comments “Dental Amalgam — Docket Number FDA-2010-N-0268” so that it gets into the right file.

Comments can involve telling the FDA about your injuries, your children’s exposure to mercury, how your mercury fillings were implanted without your informed consent, how deceptive the FDA’s dental amalgam website is, how mercury hurts our environment, or any other concerns relating to mercury fillings.

• If you live in southern California, Consumers for Dental Choice has a special request.

They are organizing a grassroots project to educate communities about the hazards of dental mercury. If you would like to get involved, write Charlie at info@toxicteeth.org, put “Californian” in the subject line, and list which county you live in and your contact information.

It is time for the FDA to get out of the way of progress and support Obama’s plan to decrease worldwide mercury contamination, rather than standing in its way. Please join Charlie and me in keeping the pressure on them — let’s not allow them to manipulate their way into placing dental industry profiteering before of your children’s health.

| Comments Off

Vitamin D influences more than 200 genes. This includes genes related to cancer and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.

Vitamin D affects your DNA through the vitamin D receptors (VDRs), which bind to specific locations of the human genome.

Reuters reports:

“Vitamin D deficiency is a well-known risk factor for rickets, and some evidence suggests it may increase susceptibility to autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, as well as certain cancers and even dementia.”

| Comments Off

(NaturalNews) Experts from different persuasions often argue about the alleged benefits of using marijuana for pain relief, but a new study out of McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University (MU) has conclusively found that cannabis, the genus name for marijuana, is better than pharmaceutical drugs at relieving chronic neurological pain, and without all the harmful side effects.

Appearing in the latest issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the study reveals that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana that gives it psychoactive and analgesic properties, is linked to relieving chronic pain, improving mood and inducing better sleep in those with severe neurological pain.

Patients who took a single inhalation of marijuana smoke three times a day experienced moderate pain reduction within just a few days. The effects were more pronounced with marijuana containing ten percent THC versus varieties with less than ten percent.

"This is the first trial to be conducted where patients have been allowed to smoke cannabis at home and to monitor their responses, daily," explained Dr. Mark Ware, lead author of the study, Director of Clinical Research at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at MUHC, assistant professor of anesthesia in McGill University's Faculty of Medicine and neuroscience researcher at the Research Institute of the MUHC.

"The patients we followed suffered from pain caused by injuries to the nervous system...and which was not controlled using standard therapies," he went on further to say. "This kind of pain occurs more frequently than many people recognize, and there are few effective treatments available. For these patients, medical cannabis is sometimes seen as their last hope."

For legitimate chronic pain caused by post-traumatic and post-surgical injuries, marijuana can be a safer alternative than prescription medications. As always, though, it is important not to abuse marijuana for non-therapeutic purposes.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/muhc-rdb082710.php

(NaturalNews) Not everyone gets excited about the idea of installing solar panels at their home or business. Sure, solar panels may help to cut costs in the long run and establish some level of "off the grid" self-sufficiency, but they are typically expensive and require complex installation and maintenance efforts. But GreenRay Solar, a Westford, Mass.-based solar company, has developed a revolutionary new integrated, simplified solar technology called the SunSine AC Module that produces up to 25 percent more energy than most current technologies, but at a fraction of the effort and cost.

Most photovoltaic (PV) solar systems produce a direct current (DC) electrical charge that requires highly specialized installation and maintenance efforts, which translates into higher costs. According to GreenRay, between 30 and 40 percent of the total cost of most solar systems covers just the laborious design and installation process required by these DC systems.

GreenRay's unique alternating current (AC) system, on the other hand, is simpler and less expensive. Besides being far safer than DC systems, the patented SunSine system is one of the only plug-and-play solar technologies available. Since all the components are integrated into each cell panel, consumers can use as many or as little cells as they want without having to get the system specially calibrated to function properly

Each SunSine panel is its own individual appliance, in other words, working fully and completely by itself. But the panels can also be attached to one another very simply, and operate at full capacity in a network as well. In contrast to most DC systems that have to be specially configured based on size and climate to power a single central converter, GreenRay's system works optimally whether you have one panel or 20 panels, and in any climate conditions. Once attached to the main electrical distribution panel, SunSine AC Modules are configured to good to go right out of the box.

Another great thing about the SunSine AC Module system is that, if you produce more energy than you use, the excess power goes back to your energy provider. So not only would you have no electric bill in this scenario, but you would actually get paid for the energy you provide back to your electric utility.

To find out more about the SunSine AC Module solar system, please visit: http://www.greenraysolar.com.

(NaturalNews) Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to a CDC report that was just released (1). Nearly a third of Americans use two or more drugs, and more than one in ten use five or more prescription drugs regularly.

The report also revealed that one in five children are being regularly given prescription drugs, and nine out of ten seniors are on drugs.

All these drugs came at a cost of over $234 billion in 2008. The most commonly-used drugs were:

• Statin drugs for older people • Asthma drugs for children • Antidepressants for middle-aged people • Amphetamine stimulants for children

America has become a nation of druggies. The seniors are being drugged for nearly every symptom a doctor can find, children are being doped up with (legalized) speed, and middle-aged soccer moms are popping suicide pills (antidepressants).

Prescription drug addictions are on the rise, too. Prescription drugs are so dangerous that now even the DEA is hosting "take back your pills" day allowing citizens to anonymously surrender their unused prescription painkillers to DEA agents. (http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x1431852393/DEA-hosting-take-back-initiative-for-unused-pills)

Interestingly, DEA agents will only accept "legal" amphetamine drugs such as Ritalin but not "illegal" methamphetamine drugs. You're only off the hook if you paid monopoly prescription prices for your drugs.

And it's only going to get worse
The percentage of Americans taking prescription drugs is expected to rise even further as the health reform insurance regulations kick in. Much of the bill was specifically designed to favor pharmaceutical industry interests by putting even more people on medication. Expect to see more "screening" too -- a thinly disguised drug recruitment method that primarily seeks to ensnare new patients in a high-profit drug regimen.

The mass medication of American citizens has reached a disturbing tipping point where the future of the nation itself is at risk. That's because pharmaceuticals cause cognitive decline, and once you get to the point where over 50 percent of the voters can't think straight, you're trapped in a crumbling Democracy.

And that doesn't even take into consideration the financial cost of America's addiction to drugs: With nearly one out of every five dollars out of the entire U.S. economy now being spent on sickness and disease, America finds herself stuck in a cycle of high-cost drug treatments that cure no one.

That's right: No one gets healthier from taking prescription drugs. They don't cure anyone and they don't prevent disease. They only maintain patients in a kind of "pre-death stasis" where they're alive just enough to keep buying more medication. Drug companies don't want you dead because that would cut off their profits. But they don't want you healthy, either, because then they wouldn't have you as a customer. So their drugs are actually designed to keep you in a state of ongoing disease without curing your condition but also without killing you outright.

You sort of chemically limp along, shelling out dollars while your memory fades and your skin starts to show signs of severe toxicity. Big Pharma is not merely sapping the life out of you; it's also draining you financially.

Isn't it obvious that pharmaceuticals don't work?
If pharmaceuticals really worked to make people healthy, then the half of America currently taking pharmaceuticals would be the healthiest half, and the people who don't take pharmaceuticals would be unhealthy, right?

But in fact it's the other way around: People who take pharmaceuticals remain unhealthy and really never get cured of anything. Meanwhile, those who avoid taking pharmaceuticals are, by and large, far healthier individuals.

If America were running a grand experiment to determine whether pharmaceuticals really work -- and trust me, the country really is running precisely that experiment -- any reasonable observer would have to conclude that pharmaceuticals really don't improve the health of those who take them. The more pharmaceuticals you take, in fact, the sicker you will become. That's because drugs cause an imbalance in the body that soon leads to the emergence of other side effects.

At the same time, many of the drugs people take actually cause the very things they claim to prevent. Osteoporosis drugs cause hip fractures. Cancer drugs cause cancer. Antidepressants cause suicidal thoughts. The list goes on and on.

The people who are really, truly healthy in America are those who avoid pharmaceuticals. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028789_pharmacies_health_food_stores.html) They take care of their own health through regular exercise, time in nature, sensible sunshine exposure and healthy eating. They distrust the pharmaceutical industry and they don't let television advertising hypnotize them into making poor decisions like getting a flu shot (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_junk_science.html).

Yet even though it is blatantly obvious that pharmaceuticals really don't work to improve the health of any population, the drug industry insists the only thing wrong with America's health is that not enough people are taking medication!

If we could only get 100% of the population on drugs instead of 50%, they seem to be saying, then we'd all be healthy!

The logic is absurd, of course. And that goal has nothing to do with actual health but everything to do with increasing drug company profits. While drug companies may not know much at all about health, they do know one thing: How to commit marketing fraud by making outrageous benefit claims for their drugs while whitewashing the very real dangerous side effects.

Big Pharma will bankrupt America
Mark my words: Big Pharma will bankrupt America. And quite possibly the UK as well. Any nation that hands over its health care system to the drug industry is committing financial suicide.

That's because Big Pharma absolutely will not halt its single-minded mission to extract as much money as possible from the population, corporations and governments. It will do anything and everything it can to accomplish this goal: Bribe researchers to commit research fraud, engage in false and fraudulent marketing, lie to the public, hide negative study results, conduct experiments on children in third-world countries, pollute the planet with drug factory runoff, influence legislators with campaign finance contributions, dominate the pages of medical journals with false and misleading advertising, submit "scientific" articles to the journals ghost-written by the drug companies themselves... this list never ends.

Drug companies will knowingly keep dangerous drugs on the market that kill tens of thousands of people. They will knowingly withhold research from the FDA if it might make their drugs look bad. They will knowingly distort clinical trial data to eliminate whatever outcome they don't want to see.

This is all "routine" in the drug industry. These aren't exceptions, mind you: They are the way the drug industry operates on a daily basis.

The worst part of it is that Big Government is now fully in bed with Big Pharma. I already exposed Sen Harry Reid's efforts to swing a sweet deal for Big Pharma in the recent health care reforms (http://www.naturalnews.com/029450_Harry_Reid_Big_Pharma.html). The FDA's collusion with drug companies, meanwhile, is legendary: There is hardly a decision made by the FDA that doesn't in some way protect drug company profits.

The med schools and science journals have been overrun by drug company influence. Drug companies are so large and powerful now that the U.S. government considers them "too big to nail." When Pfizer was recently found guilty of felony crimes, the government allowed it to create a shell company to take the hit so that Pfizer itself could remain in business and keep selling drugs to the government. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html)

A federal prosecutor actually went on the record saying, "If we prosecute Pfizer... a lot of people who work for the company who haven't engaged in criminal activity would get hurt."

Therefore, the logic goes, they have to let Pfizer off the hook.

And so it goes; Big Government protecting the criminals in the drug industry, making excuses for looking the other way when scientific fraud and marketing fraud is routinely being carried out right under their noses. The Dept of Justice isn't even interested in taking down criminal drug companies!

How this will end
So where does this medication madness ever end? It will end, I predict, with the economic downfall of the United States of America. When the nation is too broke, too medicated and too chemically compromised to stay afloat, it will suffer an enormous economic collapse.

Following the financial failure of big government, Big Pharma will implode virtually overnight. Without the government buying its products, Big Pharma will find few willing private customers. Ordinary people will seek out affordable and safer natural remedies, and the drug industry will collapse to perhaps 10% of its current size.

This will be a great day for the health of all Americans who have suffered under the chemical assault of Big Pharma. To live without the daily onslaught of Big Pharma's chemicals is to live a healthier life with improved brain function and awareness. Once people get off all their drugs, we might have hope to thoughtfully rebuild a nation based on nutrition rather than monopoly-priced medications.

I've said this at least a hundred times, and I'll say it again: No nation that ignores the nutritional health of its citizens has any real future. A successful long-term society MUST, at its core, invest in real nutrition and the holistic health education of its citizens. Without good nutrition, every society is ultimately doomed to fail.

Modern medicine, in other words, is destroying our country. And the "cure" for this disease is to throw out what doesn't work (pharmaceuticals) and start embracing the things that do work (nutrition and superfoods) to keep people healthy.

Additional sources: (1) National Center for Health Statistics: "NCHS Data Brief No. 42, September 2010."

(NaturalNews) Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to a CDC report that was just released (1). Nearly a third of Americans use two or more drugs, and more than one in ten use five or more prescription drugs regularly.

The report also revealed that one in five children are being regularly given prescription drugs, and nine out of ten seniors are on drugs.

All these drugs came at a cost of over $234 billion in 2008. The most commonly-used drugs were:

• Statin drugs for older people • Asthma drugs for children • Antidepressants for middle-aged people • Amphetamine stimulants for children

America has become a nation of druggies. The seniors are being drugged for nearly every symptom a doctor can find, children are being doped up with (legalized) speed, and middle-aged soccer moms are popping suicide pills (antidepressants).

Prescription drug addictions are on the rise, too. Prescription drugs are so dangerous that now even the DEA is hosting "take back your pills" day allowing citizens to anonymously surrender their unused prescription painkillers to DEA agents. (http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x1431852393/DEA-hosting-take-back-initiative-for-unused-pills)

Interestingly, DEA agents will only accept "legal" amphetamine drugs such as Ritalin but not "illegal" methamphetamine drugs. You're only off the hook if you paid monopoly prescription prices for your drugs.

And it's only going to get worse
The percentage of Americans taking prescription drugs is expected to rise even further as the health reform insurance regulations kick in. Much of the bill was specifically designed to favor pharmaceutical industry interests by putting even more people on medication. Expect to see more "screening" too -- a thinly disguised drug recruitment method that primarily seeks to ensnare new patients in a high-profit drug regimen.

The mass medication of American citizens has reached a disturbing tipping point where the future of the nation itself is at risk. That's because pharmaceuticals cause cognitive decline, and once you get to the point where over 50 percent of the voters can't think straight, you're trapped in a crumbling Democracy.

And that doesn't even take into consideration the financial cost of America's addiction to drugs: With nearly one out of every five dollars out of the entire U.S. economy now being spent on sickness and disease, America finds herself stuck in a cycle of high-cost drug treatments that cure no one.

That's right: No one gets healthier from taking prescription drugs. They don't cure anyone and they don't prevent disease. They only maintain patients in a kind of "pre-death stasis" where they're alive just enough to keep buying more medication. Drug companies don't want you dead because that would cut off their profits. But they don't want you healthy, either, because then they wouldn't have you as a customer. So their drugs are actually designed to keep you in a state of ongoing disease without curing your condition but also without killing you outright.

You sort of chemically limp along, shelling out dollars while your memory fades and your skin starts to show signs of severe toxicity. Big Pharma is not merely sapping the life out of you; it's also draining you financially.

Isn't it obvious that pharmaceuticals don't work?
If pharmaceuticals really worked to make people healthy, then the half of America currently taking pharmaceuticals would be the healthiest half, and the people who don't take pharmaceuticals would be unhealthy, right?

But in fact it's the other way around: People who take pharmaceuticals remain unhealthy and really never get cured of anything. Meanwhile, those who avoid taking pharmaceuticals are, by and large, far healthier individuals.

If America were running a grand experiment to determine whether pharmaceuticals really work -- and trust me, the country really is running precisely that experiment -- any reasonable observer would have to conclude that pharmaceuticals really don't improve the health of those who take them. The more pharmaceuticals you take, in fact, the sicker you will become. That's because drugs cause an imbalance in the body that soon leads to the emergence of other side effects.

At the same time, many of the drugs people take actually cause the very things they claim to prevent. Osteoporosis drugs cause hip fractures. Cancer drugs cause cancer. Antidepressants cause suicidal thoughts. The list goes on and on.

The people who are really, truly healthy in America are those who avoid pharmaceuticals. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028789_pharmacies_health_food_stores.html) They take care of their own health through regular exercise, time in nature, sensible sunshine exposure and healthy eating. They distrust the pharmaceutical industry and they don't let television advertising hypnotize them into making poor decisions like getting a flu shot (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_junk_science.html).

Yet even though it is blatantly obvious that pharmaceuticals really don't work to improve the health of any population, the drug industry insists the only thing wrong with America's health is that not enough people are taking medication!

If we could only get 100% of the population on drugs instead of 50%, they seem to be saying, then we'd all be healthy!

The logic is absurd, of course. And that goal has nothing to do with actual health but everything to do with increasing drug company profits. While drug companies may not know much at all about health, they do know one thing: How to commit marketing fraud by making outrageous benefit claims for their drugs while whitewashing the very real dangerous side effects.

Big Pharma will bankrupt America
Mark my words: Big Pharma will bankrupt America. And quite possibly the UK as well. Any nation that hands over its health care system to the drug industry is committing financial suicide.

That's because Big Pharma absolutely will not halt its single-minded mission to extract as much money as possible from the population, corporations and governments. It will do anything and everything it can to accomplish this goal: Bribe researchers to commit research fraud, engage in false and fraudulent marketing, lie to the public, hide negative study results, conduct experiments on children in third-world countries, pollute the planet with drug factory runoff, influence legislators with campaign finance contributions, dominate the pages of medical journals with false and misleading advertising, submit "scientific" articles to the journals ghost-written by the drug companies themselves... this list never ends.

Drug companies will knowingly keep dangerous drugs on the market that kill tens of thousands of people. They will knowingly withhold research from the FDA if it might make their drugs look bad. They will knowingly distort clinical trial data to eliminate whatever outcome they don't want to see.

This is all "routine" in the drug industry. These aren't exceptions, mind you: They are the way the drug industry operates on a daily basis.

The worst part of it is that Big Government is now fully in bed with Big Pharma. I already exposed Sen Harry Reid's efforts to swing a sweet deal for Big Pharma in the recent health care reforms (http://www.naturalnews.com/029450_Harry_Reid_Big_Pharma.html). The FDA's collusion with drug companies, meanwhile, is legendary: There is hardly a decision made by the FDA that doesn't in some way protect drug company profits.

The med schools and science journals have been overrun by drug company influence. Drug companies are so large and powerful now that the U.S. government considers them "too big to nail." When Pfizer was recently found guilty of felony crimes, the government allowed it to create a shell company to take the hit so that Pfizer itself could remain in business and keep selling drugs to the government. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html)

A federal prosecutor actually went on the record saying, "If we prosecute Pfizer... a lot of people who work for the company who haven't engaged in criminal activity would get hurt."

Therefore, the logic goes, they have to let Pfizer off the hook.

And so it goes; Big Government protecting the criminals in the drug industry, making excuses for looking the other way when scientific fraud and marketing fraud is routinely being carried out right under their noses. The Dept of Justice isn't even interested in taking down criminal drug companies!

How this will end
So where does this medication madness ever end? It will end, I predict, with the economic downfall of the United States of America. When the nation is too broke, too medicated and too chemically compromised to stay afloat, it will suffer an enormous economic collapse.

Following the financial failure of big government, Big Pharma will implode virtually overnight. Without the government buying its products, Big Pharma will find few willing private customers. Ordinary people will seek out affordable and safer natural remedies, and the drug industry will collapse to perhaps 10% of its current size.

This will be a great day for the health of all Americans who have suffered under the chemical assault of Big Pharma. To live without the daily onslaught of Big Pharma's chemicals is to live a healthier life with improved brain function and awareness. Once people get off all their drugs, we might have hope to thoughtfully rebuild a nation based on nutrition rather than monopoly-priced medications.

I've said this at least a hundred times, and I'll say it again: No nation that ignores the nutritional health of its citizens has any real future. A successful long-term society MUST, at its core, invest in real nutrition and the holistic health education of its citizens. Without good nutrition, every society is ultimately doomed to fail.

Modern medicine, in other words, is destroying our country. And the "cure" for this disease is to throw out what doesn't work (pharmaceuticals) and start embracing the things that do work (nutrition and superfoods) to keep people healthy.

Additional sources: (1) National Center for Health Statistics: "NCHS Data Brief No. 42, September 2010."

Ginny Bank began her career as a natural products chemist with Hauser Inc., a research and development company which focused on natural product extracts and purified plant compounds. She has researched and developed plant-based functional ingredients for nutritional supplement applications for over 15 years.

Ms. Bank is currently the President and Founder of Full Spectrum Consulting, a natural products consulting firm specializing in research, product development, quality management and technical marketing for the nutraceutical and food.

In this interview, she discusses the characteristics of chlorella and its and phenomenal potential to improve your health in a number of different ways.

Ginny Bank began her career as a natural products chemist with Hauser Inc., a research and development company which focused on natural product extracts and purified plant compounds. She has researched and developed plant-based functional ingredients for nutritional supplement applications for over 15 years.

Ms. Bank is currently a Scientific Adviser for RFI LLC and President and Founder of Full Spectrum Consulting, a natural products consulting firm specializing in research, product development, quality management and technical marketing for the nutraceutical and food.

In this interview, she discusses the characteristics of chlorella and its and phenomenal potential to improve your health in a number of different ways.