Posted: January 1, 2013
On New Year's day, India joined a select band of countries where food containing genetically modified (GM) content must be labelled as such. But it has done so without any preparation.
The labelling of foods with GM ingredients has been a long-held demand of consumer groups, but the way it has been done in India has left them disappointed.
The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, which came into effect on January 1, say "every package containing the genetically modified food shall bear at the top of its principal display panel the letters 'GM'."
Consumer rights activist Bejon Misra said of the move: "It is a good step, but it is being done without any preparation at all. We don't know how this rule will be implemented or how it will be applied to products with GM content that are being imported or how the violators be prosecuted."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Posted: December 31, 2012
"Amantadine and the place of acupuncture in the treatment of fatigue in patients with multiple sclerosis: an observational study," Foroughipour M, Bahrami Taghanaki HR
A clinical trial including 40 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) found that acupuncture may lesson fatigue in MS patients resistant to conventional treatment alone. Patients with fatigue unresponsive to amantadine (n=20) underwent 12 sessions of acupuncture. 5 patients (25%) responded to acupuncture combined with amantadine treatment. Fatigue scores of all 20 patients who were resistant to the medication were significantly reduced after acupuncture treatment. Results show that acupuncture may be beneficial for some MS patients with fatigue who are resistant to conventional drugs such as amantadine.
Read original study here: http://www.vitasearch.com
Posted: December 31, 2012
PHOENIX (AP) - A group of parents barred from adopting or fostering kids in Arizona's child-welfare system because they won't vaccinate their own children are pushing for changes in state law.
Susann Van Tienderen and Gina Apilado claim the state violates its own rules by refusing to consider potential foster families whose biological children have medical exemptions from immunization rules. Both women's families want to adopt children from Arizona foster care.
Two state lawmakers - Sen. Nancy Barto and Rep. Debbie Lesko - met this month with officials from the state Department of Economic Security, which oversees foster-care licensing. They said they're drafting companion bills that would eliminate the vaccination requirement as a licensing condition to become a foster parent. The lawmakers plan to introduce the bills during the upcoming session, which begins Jan. 14.
Department of Economic Security officials said the rules are meant to protect foster children who may not be completely immunized, The Arizona Republic reported.
Read more here: http://www.mohavedailynews.com
Posted: December 31, 2012
Questions are emerging about the breakdown of the federal government's science integrity process in the wake of the Food & Drug Administration's long-delayed release of its approval of the first genetically modified animal for human consumption.
The AquAdvantage salmon developed byAquaBounty Technologies of Massachusetts - an Atlantic salmon modified with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon so it grows to maturity faster - had been winding its way through the federal approval process for 17 years. Two years ago, the FDA had said it was going to release its environmental assessment, the final document in the approval process, within weeks. It was finally and quietly posted on the FDA's website only last Friday - just hours before the long holiday weekend - and published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
Read more here: http://www.forbes.com
Posted: December 31, 2012
The revolving door between the private sector and government bodies has been well established. Over the past few years in Britain, the media has occasionally shed light on the cosy and highly questionable links between the armaments industry and top people in the Ministry of Defence. In the US, many senior figures from the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) industry, especially Monsanto, have moved with ease to take up positions with the Food and Drug Administration. Author and researcher William F Engdahl writes about a similar influence in Europe, noting the links between the GMO sector within the European Food Safety Authority. He states that over half of the scientists involved in the GMO panel which positively reviewed the Monsanto's study for GMO maize in 2009, leading to its EU-wide authorisation, had links with the biotech industry.
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.'s job" - Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Playing God in the Garden" New York Times Magazine,October 25, 1998.
Read more here: http://www.globalresearch.ca
Posted: December 31, 2012
Resolutions are notorious for falling by the wayside a few months or even days into the New Year. A 2012University of Scranton study revealed that only 8 percent of people who make New Year's resolutions are successful in achieving them. This low success rate may relate to the fact that many of us are more inclined to center our resolutions on self-criticism than on real aspirations or desires. Rarely do we set a goal to spend more time joking around with friends or listening to music we enjoy. Rather, our resolutions tend to focus on "fixing" our flaws or "correcting" our failures. This negative viewpoint comes from a "critical inner voice" we all possess that alerts us of what we need to fix, while reminding us that we won't succeed. Filtering our personal goals through this critical lens only sets us up for failure. With that in mind, this year, I want to propose a new list of deeply rewarding and reachable resolutions. These activities have been proven to benefit us on every level, increasing both the quality and length of our lives.
Be More Mindful: Mindfulness meditation is an amazing method for learning to live in the moment. We do not exist in the future or in the past, yet many of us spend most of our time worrying about one or the other. By paying attention to the present with purpose and without judgment, we make the most of every minute we have. A 2009 article in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences posed, "Meditation practices have various health benefits including the possibility of preserving cognition and preventing dementia." In addition to potentially sustaining brain functionality, new studies have suggested that mindfulness meditation may slow the rate of cellular aging. The evidence that meditation practices may actually increase our lifespan should give us that extra incentive to take this time for ourselves. The benefits may mean not only more years to enjoy, but more joy in our years. You can learn more about meditation practices and benefits from mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn here.
Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted: December 30, 2012
http://nocompulsoryvaccination.comFree speech is under intense assault in Australia as the education-based Anti-Vaccination Network is now being threatened with a government-forced shut-down unless it changes its name.
The Australian government is so desperate to crush the free flow of truthful information about the dangers of vaccines that it cannot even allow the NAME of an anti-vaccine organization to exist!
Posted: December 26, 2012
If the sinful excess of holiday eating sends your system into butter-slathered, brandy-soaked overload, you are not alone: People who are jet-lagged, people who work graveyard shifts and plain-old late-night snackers know just how you feel.
All these activities upset the body's "food clock," a collection of interacting genes and molecules known technically as the food-entrainable oscillator, which keeps the human body on a metabolic even keel. A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is helping to reveal how this clock works on a molecular level.
Published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the UCSF team has shown that a protein called PKC? is critical in resetting the food clock if our eating habits change.
Read more here: http://www.sciencedaily.com
Posted: December 26, 2012
Vaccination programs have been wide spread along the length and breadth of the country but have yielded almost no result at the cost of millions of dollars. Natural News had previously revealed that those diseases that have long been claimed to have been contained due to widespread vaccination, have actually been wiped out from the face of earth due to improvement in living conditions and increase in consciousness about personal hygiene. Now, it has been revealed that the vaccinations that continue even today are giving rise to neurological disorders like macrophagic myofasciitis or MMF.
http://www.naturalnews.com
MMF was first identified in 1998 and since then it has been regarded as one of the most serious neurological problems. Though very little is known about MMF, it has been found that vaccines that contain aluminum are directly responsible for the advent of the disease in the human body. A study published in the journal Brain in 2001 showed that vaccines with aluminum were directly related to MMF but it was not enough to compel the government to stop vaccination of the general public, instead, widespread vaccination programs still continue today.
Read more here: http://healthrangerupdate.wordpress.com
Posted: December 26, 2012
You know smoking, drinking, and eating junk food can shorten your life, but do you know how much?
Now, thanks to a paper from the University of Cambridge published in the British Medical Journal, it's possible to attach a number to those bad habits.
David Spiegelhalter, PhD, a biostatistician and risk communication expert, used the speed of aging and previous epidemiological mortality studies to quantify how certain behaviors benefit and hurt us.
Here are a few of the behaviors that can shave 30 minutes per day off of a person's life:
- Smoking two cigarettes a day
- Drinking two extra alcoholic drinks a day (three a day for women and four a day for men)
- One portion of red meat a day
Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted: December 26, 2012
Cannabis makes pain more bearable rather than actually reducing it, a study from the University of Oxford suggests.
Using brain imaging, researchers found that the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis reduced activity in a part of the brain linked to emotional aspects of pain.
But the effect on the pain experienced varied greatly, they said.
The researchers' findings are published in the journal Pain.
The Oxford researchers recruited 12 healthy men to take part in their small study.
Read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20810603
Posted: December 21, 2012
A preposterous trend can be observed in modern psychiatry nowadays. There is an
initiative to term each and every human emotion as a disease or disorder.
Normal reflexes like delight, anger, anxiety and sorrow are waiting to be
coined as mental disorders and hence treated accordingly. This is carefully
planned and executed by the big pharmaceuticals who want to capitalize on the
fear, panic and the ignorance of the general public. Natural News reports that
the practitioners of psychiatry have taken every step to turn people into
senseless zombies.
It is reported that within a few months, a new reference about psychiatric
problems is going to be published. DSM-5, as the name of the reference goes,
has already incorporated different emotional situations as mental disorders.
Thus, modern psychiatry is trying hard to term each and every person in the U.S. as psychologically challenged in order to force them to consume certain medicines thus maximizing the profits of big pharmaceutical companies. The situation is so volatile that psychiatrists are actually fabricating diseases and terming normal human behavior as their symptoms. The anarchy is growing out of control and the government does not seem to be moved.
Read more here: http://naturalnewsglobal.blog.com
Posted: December 21, 2012
When it comes to your health, where you live can make a difference. Exercise-friendly parks and healthy eating establishments can create an environment of wellness that make good-for-you habits hard to avoid. Kids who live within walking distance from schools, libraries and supermarkets, for example, are 59% less likely to be obese.
But which cities are the most health conscious? Tracking the 2.5 million appointments made through the online doctor appointment booking service ZocDoc each month, the service ranked cities (and some regions) based on the percentage of total appointments booked by health-minded residents in each city. The report doesn't track whether patients actually kept the appointments, but it's a potentially revealing look at best health intentions across the country. Not surprisingly, January is the most popular month to book a visit to the doctors office - not a bad way to start your New Year's resolutions.
Read more here: http://healthland.time.com
Posted: December 21, 2012
When Paul Raeburn needed immediate help for his suicidal son, he had few good options. The teen had threatened to sit on nearby railroad tracks until a train came. Even though Raeburn, a leading health and science writer, was in a position to know more about the best available mental health services and treatment options for his son than most, when a crisis hit, he felt he only had one choice: to call the police and risk that his child would wind up incarcerated rather than hospitalized.
"I tried to physically restrain him, but that's not easy with a teenager," Raeburn says, "I had no other option and this doesn't seem like an ideal situation to take care of our sick kids."
While it's not clear whether mental illness - alone or in combination with a developmental disorder - played any role in the devastating tragedy in Newtown, CT, the shootings have triggered a much-needed discussion about how we care for psychiatric patients. The debate has thrown a harsh light on the piecemeal nature of America's mental health system, which is leaving too many children and young adults, like Raeburn's son, without the resources they need.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com
Posted: December 21, 2012
They're everywhere - the colorful, sugary, filled-with-calorie treats and beverages that the holidays spawn.
To help you survive the end-of-year feasts without creating your own version of Santa's jolly belly, we combed through party staples and seasonal favorites and compiled a list of foods that should stay on the platter and not on your plate. According to the National Institutes of Health, people who gain weight during the holidays have a harder time shedding those pounds (although the good news is that most people don't gain as much weight as they fear during winter festivities). But don't worry, there's no need to snub Grandma's gingerbread cookies. As always, moderation is key, and with the help of Dr. Howard Shapiro, a New York City physician and weight loss specialist, we found relatively simple substitutes for turning seasonal naughty foods, nice.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com
Posted: December 21, 2012
There is no doubt that it was a declaration of the Government's colours on genetically modified farming when Environment Secretary Owen Paterson rounded on critics of GM technology as "humbugs" last week, and insisted GM food should be grown and sold widely in Britain.
During the course of his ringing endorsement, he managed to spark outrage and alarm by claiming "there isn't a single piece of meat being served [in a typical London restaurant] where a bullock hasn't eaten some GM feed".
His belligerent intent was quite clear. The message he wanted to get across was that GM crops are already here and in the food chain, there's nothing to fear - and nothing we can do about it.
This is exactly the sort of ill-informed complacency the biotech corporations pushing GM crops seem to encourage. But the truth is that Mr Paterson is wrong - and worse still, being misleading.
Read more here: http://www.gmwatch.org
Posted: December 21, 2012
Most of us think of soil erosion as the primary force that levels mountains, however geologists have found that Oahu's mountains are dissolving from within due to groundwater.
Someday, Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains will be reduced to nothing more than a flat, low-lying island like Midway.
But erosion isn't the biggest culprit. Instead, scientists say, the mountains of Oahu are actually dissolving from within.
"We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and what the influence of climate is on that rate," said Brigham Young University geologist Steve Nelson. "More material is dissolving from those islands than what is being carried off through erosion."
Read more here: http://www.sciencedaily.com
Posted: December 21, 2012
An experimental "Trojan-horse" cancer therapy has completely eliminated prostate cancer in experiments on mice, according to UK researchers.
The team hid cancer killing viruses inside the immune system in order to sneak them into a tumour.
Once inside, a study in the journal Cancer Research showed, tens of thousands of viruses were released to kill the cancerous cells.
Experts labelled the study "exciting," but human tests are still needed.
Using viruses to destroy rapidly growing tumours is an emerging field in cancer therapy, however one of the challenges is getting the viruses deep inside the tumour where they can do the damage.
"The problem is penetration," Prof Claire Lewis from the University of Sheffield told the BBC.
Read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20795977
Posted: December 20, 2012
Can you "binge" for the holidays and expect your body to simply "purge" the chemicals? Maybe you should plan ahead how to eat strategically.
A Natural News inside "scoop" for your dessert treat every day this holiday season.
Most of us go off the rails a little bit during the holidays, but what rails are those, because they're different for each person. Where are your "rails"? Do you set up standards for yourself and strategies for dealing with urges? With politeness at a party or at the movie theatre? Popcorn, coke, cake, ice cream, colorful cookies, beer, wine, liquor, liquor filled chocolates, where do YOU draw the line, and what line is that?
Most of us go off the rails (reasonable nutrition standard), a little or a lot ...
So why do we do it?
Many - perhaps most - poor dietary choices stem from an inability to resist cravings. How can you be strategic about eating during the holidays? About drinking alcohol? http://www.marksdailyapple.com
"Be strategic about what you'll allow. Have a little bit", says New York-based fitness instructor Danielle Hopkins.
Read more here: http://healthrangerupdate.wordpress.com
Posted: December 20, 2012
Freedom of speech is being squashed in Australia. If what you have to say runs counter to what mainstream medicine and its lackey, the government, want promulgated, then dissenting views are being suppressed.
The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), an organization that promotes actually thinking about the issue of vaccines, was recently ordered by the Australian government to change its name. They claim that it's "misleading".
New South Wales, Australia has been systematically stealing the people's right to choose how they're treated medically, or to choose not to be treated. They have claimed that sources "within the community" have complained that the name of the organization is misleading. When pressed for specifics, they trotted out the Australian Medical Association (AMA), which is little more than a front group for the medical industry, quite literally a organization whose purpose is to lobby for the economic benefit of the Australian medical industrial complex.
Read more here: http://gaia-health.com
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