Sunday, October 30, 2016

Almonds are now considered HEALTHY. Or so says the FDA

LThe SCARY part of that title is that up until last month, the FDA has considered almonds as being, 'Not Healthy'. On September 17 just a bit over a month ago, the FDA published new rules over what they have defined as being, 'Healthy'. And the usage of that terminology in any labeling. Let's not forget that the FDA are the ones that took over 50 years to determine that transfats are 'Not Healthy'. Despite over 50 years of definitive research showing how horrific ALL artificially made transfats are to the human body. So that begs one to ask the question, 'What is the role of the FDA anyway?'

They do have a mission statement. FDA Mission   Personally I think they have failed at just about all of what they profess to be doing. But, that's just me. I mean 175 medications recalled and removed from the approved list after serious incidents, deaths and horrific complications became too great. Taking drug manufacturers to court for violating FDA regulations, including falsifying data to get drugs approved, and then fining those drug companies 20 billion dollars in total; is too little, too late. The FDA had approved each and every one of those 175 drugs to begin with. Inspections of imported food products are at an all time high of 2% of total imports; and of those inspected, over 80% are rejected for contamination, spoilage or other problems. The other 98% are on store shelves. addendum (I was called out on this and am now revising this by telling you it's 80% of fresh foods that are rejected. The number is not so high for seafood, hard candies and spices) The list of chemical additives used in the food-like substance manufacturing process is now over ELEVEN THOUSAND different chemicals. And of which over 700 are known carcinogens. And there is no way of knowing if that number is greater because so many have never been tested for toxicity or carcinogenicity. No, the FDA is not in any way shape or form fulfilling their Mission. My favorite example of FDA failure

The list of failures is endless. The FDA tells us the term Natural can be used on any product really. FDA Guideline. Then the FDA further defines the use of the word Natural by saying pesticides and other contaminates are fine and dandy FDA Further Guide to Natural So where does that leave the food processors that actually make real food that is NATURAL? Well, at a competitive disadvantage.

Then the FDA has somewhat stricter rules about using the term Healthy FDA on Healthy

I haven't figured that one out. 

Realistically the FDA had to revise the rules that Food and Food-like Substance Manufacturers utilize in labeling of their products as "Healthy". The revisions were needed because the FDA recently published their ALL NEW and IMPROVED DIETARY GUIDELINES FOR AMERICANS for 2015-2020. Which you can read here. Dietary Guidelines. And it is long, full of some interesting changes that the Feds recommend, and yet, doesn't do enough. Not anywhere near enough. It is recommended that Americans reduce their intake of sugary drinks, and reduce their intake of saturated fat. See page 14 of the pdf at the link above.

It isn't enough. But then big business controls what the FDA does and doesn't do. And the FDA in setting "Guidelines" can only recommend. There is no action taken other than tiny things like this change in the status of almonds going from "Not-Healthy" to their new status of "HEALTHY". The reason for the change--
  • Foods must meet the “low fat” requirement (<3 g fat per serving) or total fat per serving must be primarily comprised of mono- and polyunsaturated fats. Mono- and polyunsaturated fat content must be declared on the Nutrition Facts Panel.
  • Foods must contain at least 10% of the Daily Value for vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein, fiber, potassium or vitamin D. If using potassium or vitamin D to substantiate, the amount per serving must be declared on the label.
 Almonds haven't changed at all. It's the perception of their inherent nutrient density that has changed. And certainly for the better. That isn't in dispute. It's the whole concept that the FDA uses to create food guidelines without actually using available data and research showing the world just how horrific processed foods are. Ever since the inception of the program, the food pyramid, the FDA has bowed to the wishes of food manufacturers and changed what humans NEED to be healthy to include food-like substances that make manufacturers healthy. Profit wise. And at the expense of the health of Americans. You can read about the first "Food Pyramid" here.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing. It's just like all the other failures of the FDA, it's too little, too late.

Yep

Monday, October 17, 2016

What would Woody Allen say if he really looked around in the future?

The future of food:

What a future we have in store for us all. Great things, flying cars, supermen and women, interstellar travel and wondrous monumental technological innovations. Or, depending on who you listen to, a world that has little life left on it, nuclear winter, or even blazing heat having killed off most of the life. And all a result of human intervention. 

Who knows what tomorrow brings.

Woody Allen made a movie with my secret crush Diane Keaton long ago called Sleeper. Nerdish Woody wakes up 200 years in the future, and the world is very different. Cigarettes and chocolate are good for you. And the Orgasmatron is the most popular entertainment around. Well at least to Woody anyway. Time alone where he can think of post pubescent Korean girls.

I want to explore that world a bit more in depth. Given the path that America, and the international corporate system of the manufacturing of food like products have begun to follow. And the technology that has developed to accomplish what just might be, our food future...

I wake up, after having been accidentally frozen in liquid nitrogen in a bizarre calamity that would, well, make anyone laugh. Hey, it's me, a lot of weird crap has happened to me. The year is 2266, I was out of touch for 250 years. The company owners, give me an apology, and register my thumbprint so I can live, at their expense, for a while anyway. I have a young secretary assigned to me to help, at least until I can acclimate to the new world. I am sort of hungry, so we go out and find a diner. There in the front counter space are two huge blobs of quivering fleshy looking mounds. The counter man barks at us, "Hey we got the finest Chicken Little in the city. What you want us to make for you. Or maybe a little Beef Supremo. Just look at healthy they both are, tell me which you want."
My guide tells the man two sandwiches, Chicken Little. The man behind the counter slices off two hunks of the quivering flesh and tosses them behind him onto the hot griddle where they sizzle. We stand at the counter and watch as the sandwiches are made. Once finished, we sit at a booth near the back of the diner.

"What was that?" I ask
"The greatest technological innovation ever! Just think, when scientists were able to genetically create a living piece of flesh, it made it possible to feed a nutrient based solution to the living material, it grows and becomes real living chicken or beef."
"No pork?"
"This diner is Kosher."
That made sense, my people persevere. "So what's this green stuff on the sandwich, it isn't lettuce."
"Well Mr. Marshall, when the corporations assumed control of the world some 200 years ago, Bayer, our Almighty Guardian," and here she bowed her head in a religious sort of gesture, "outlawed all plants except those needed to create our foods we have today. Now days, the only things growing on the planet, outside the few remaining acres of forest preserve in San Francisco, are corn, wheat, soy, cotton, beets and canola. Every single thing that we consume can be artificially manufactured from those basic ingredients. Life is ever more wondrous than ever before."

I know it sounds like an impossibility, but think about it. 
This scenario is in fact, the goal of every CEO of every one of the food like substance manufacturing corporations, the CEOs of every agrichemical corporation, and every politician as well. That's because when the takeover happens, the politicos will already have structured a deal with their corporate rulers to ensure they live high on the hog and not have to worry about anything.

Like they do now.

Yep

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Flu Vaccines A reprint

I don't do this often, but I found this to be pretty spectacular. So this woman gives very credible arguments for not getting the flu vaccine. It's a multi multi billion dollar business with no viable efficacy. It's never been proven they work. Read it, it's very well done.  And wait, look, there are initials after name. Some think that's more important than anything else in the world.


Flu Vaccines Part I
 by Pamela A. Popper, Ph.D., N.D.
 
 
 
It’s fall, the time when health authorities, medical doctors, and government officials start aggressively promoting flu vaccines for everyone. My advice - just say “no.”
 
Marketing the flu vaccine to the public requires a lot of misrepresentation, which includes overstating the incidence and risks associated with the flu. The flu virus is constantly present and does not make a brief appearance during “flu season.” Influenza is often confused with influenza-like illness (ILI) which can result from 200 viruses in addition to influenza A and B.  These viruses produce the same symptoms as flu, which include fever, headache, aches, pains, cough, and runny noses, making it impossible to distinguish between the two without diagnostic testing. An individual is seven times more likely to have an influenza-like illness than influenza, but ILI is rarely serious.
 
Nonetheless The Centers for Disease Control promotes flu vaccines, stating, “Influenza is a serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and sometimes even death. Every flu season is different, and influenza infection can affect people differently. Even healthy people can get very sick from the flu and spread it to others. Over a period of 31 seasons between 1976 and 2007, estimates of flu-associated deaths in the United States range from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people.”[i]  But on another page of its website, the agency states, “CDC does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year.[ii] In other words, the CDC aggressively promotes a solution for a problem that it cannot quantify.
 
What can be more easily quantified is risks associated with the vaccine. On several occasions, flu vaccine programs have been terminated due to side effects. In October 1976, The National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP) started with about one million vaccinations per week, and grew quickly to four million per week. But within only two months, ten states had reported cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome linked to the vaccine. In December 1976, the program was discontinued.
 
By January 1977, more than 500 cases of GBS had been reported. Some patients recovered completely, some partially, and 25 people died. The NIIP determined that the risk of developing GBS within 6 weeks was 10 times higher for those receiving a flu vaccine than for unvaccinated people. While this should have been the end of promoting population-wide vaccination for flu until safety could be established, flu vaccine promotion programs continued. In 1992, 1993, and 1994 flu vaccines again were shown to increase the risk of GBS.[iii] [iv] [v]
 
As of November 2013, there were 93,000 reactions attributed to flu vaccines reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) including 1,080 deaths, 8,888 hospitalizations, 1,801 disabilities, and 1,700 cases of Guillian Barre Syndrome.[vi]
 
According to data from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the flu shot is the most dangerous vaccine in America. During one reporting period, out of 134 cases settled before the court, 79 were due to the flu shot, and these included three deaths. While the most common injury resulting from flu shots was Guillain-Barre syndrome, others included acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, transverse myelitis, shingles (herpes zoster), neuropathic demyelination, seizures, neuropathy, brachial plexopathy, rheumatoid arthritis, optic neuritis, and Bell's palsy.[vii] 
 
The adjuvants in flu vaccines, which include mercury (25 mcg), formaldehyde, polyethylene glycol, egg protein, polysorbate 80, MSG, pig gelatin, and antibiotics are equally concerning. Between 2009-2010, fetal deaths reported to VAERS had increased 4,250% just with the addition of Thimerosal to flu vaccines.[viii]
 
Just as concerning is the efficacy (or lack of efficacy) of the vaccine. A Cochrane review analyzed the impact of flu vaccines on healthy adults including pregnant women and newborns by looking at 90 reports of 116 studies that compared flu vaccines to placebo or no intervention. Combined, the studies included close to ten million people. The group concluded that 40 people would have to be vaccinated to prevent just one case of influenza-like illness (ILI), and 71 people have to be vaccinated to prevent one case of influenza. The vaccine had no effect on the number of working days lost or hospitalization rates. The vaccine also had almost no effect on pregnant women or their newborn babies. Live aerosol vaccine was similarly useless.[ix]
 
In another review, Cochrane reported that flu vaccines were not effective for the elderly either.[x]
 
Cochrane conducted a similar review to evaluate the efficacy rates (defined as prevention of confirmed influenza), effectiveness (defined as prevention of influenza-like illness), and adverse events of influenza vaccines in healthy children. The review included 75 studies and showed:
  • Six children under age 6 have to be vaccinated with live attenuated vaccine in order to prevent one case of flu.
  • In all of the studies, there was no useable data for children under the age of two.
  • For children age two or younger, inactivated flu vaccines were no more effective than placebo.
  • In order to prevent one case of influenza in children over the age of six, 28 children need to be vaccinated, and eight need to be vaccinated to prevent just one case of influenza-like illness.
 
The researchers found “no evidence of effect on secondary cases, lower respiratory tract disease, drug prescriptions, otitis media… (only) weak single study evidence of effect on school absenteeism and caring parents from work.”  In other words, the children had almost no reduction in risk of developing the flu, flu-like illness, or of developing complications from flu. The vaccine was shown to be almost worthless.
Side effects were noted, however, and some were serious such as narcolepsy and febrile convulsions.
 
The researchers expressed surprise that the current recommendation is to vaccinate healthy children starting at 6 months of age in the U.S. and several other countries based on such limited evidence, and advised that research is needed in order to identify all potential harm resulting from flu vaccines.
 
Just as important, researchers identified issues concerning study design, funding, and scientific misbehavior. The Cochrane group reported that industry-funded studies showed more positive results than those funded with public money. They reported that “An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry-funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size…the review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.”[xi]  Translation:  lots of misconduct is required in order to report conclusions that support flu vaccines.
         
Even the package inserts on the vaccines state that they are not effective. For example, the package insert for FLULAVAL 2013-2014 formula for Influenza subtype A viruses and type B virus states, “…there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccinations with FLULAVAL.[xii]
 
Next week, flu vaccines for pregnant women, healthcare workers, and widespread misbehavior in promoting flu vaccines.


[iii] Lasky T, Terracciano G, Magder L, et al. “The Guillain-BarrĂ© syndrome and the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 influenza vaccines.” NEJM 1998;339(25):1797-802.
[iv] Schonberger L, Bregman D, Sullivan-Bolyai J, et al. “Guillain-Barre syndrome following vaccination in the National Influenza Immunization Program, United States, 1976–1977.” Am J Epidemiol  1979; 110(5):105–23.
[v] Geier M, Geier D, Zahalsky A. “Influenza vaccination and Guillain Barre syndrome small star, filled.” Clin Immunol 2003;107(2):116-21.
[ix] Demicheli V, Jefferson T, Al-Ansary LA, Ferroni E, Rivetti A, Di Pietrantonj C. “Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD001269. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001269.pub5
[x] Rivetti D, Jefferson T, Thomas R, Rudin M, Rivetti A, Di Pietrantonj C, Demicheli V. “Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly.” Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006 Jul 19;(3):CD004876.
[xi] Jefferson T, Rivetti A, Di Piettrantonj C, Demicheli V, FerroniE. “Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children.” Cochrane Database Syst Rev August 15 2012 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2289594