Gardasil--the failed drug for girls--now being promoted for boys (??!!??)

I referenced a couple of articles yesterday that discussed the track record of Gardasil for girls--y'know, how it is killing approximately one young woman a month, not to mention the hundreds of young women who have been permanently disabled by the vaccine . . . all to achieve a minor, potential, low-single-digits percentage relief from two possible sources of cervical cancer.

Well, with that kind of track record, what can you expect from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but a plan to ensure boys, also, are injected with the drug! (???)

What?!? Why?

In Douglass' inimitable style:

Since boys obviously can’t get cervical cancer, the vaccine peddlers have had to scheme up other reasons to push this on them.

And some of them are real beauts.

Ever hear of a life-threatening case of genital warts? Of course you haven’t — but the feds think your boy should be inoculated… just in case.

Not good enough for you? Don’t worry — they’ve cooked up some more “benefits” for you and your boy: If he grows up to prefer men over women, the vaccine might protect him from anal cancer.

I don’t know anyone outside of California who makes health decisions for a child based on the assumption that he might turn out to be gay someday — but even if he did, bear in mind that the CDC says the anal cancer rate among gays is “as high as” 37 for every 100,000.

That’s 0.037 percent, folks. And the “as high as” means it’s probably much lower than that.

But the writing’s on the wall — Gardasil will make the list for boys sooner or later. All you can do is arm yourself now — with information — so when they come a-knocking for your son, you’ll have the power to tell them where they can shove that needle.

Once more I ask: Is our government truly interested in preserving our lives, liberties, and our ability to pursue our own happiness? Or is it in the back pocket of certain large industrial interests to help them maximize their profits?

Your federal taxes protecting scientifically-based medicine?

I was floored by Dr. Douglass' claim this morning:

Inside the mystery placebos

Why bother creating a good drug -- all you really need to do is come up with a bad placebo.

Statins, for example, would look positively fantastic if you could somehow spike the placebo with strychnine.

Far-fetched? Maybe not -- because the truth is, nobody knows what the heck is in most of the placebos used in drug trials.

Nobody, that is, except for the researchers and their Big Pharma backers.

In a new analysis, researchers looked at 176 studies published in four major medical journals between January 2008 and December 2009 to see what placebos were used.

They didn't get very far: Just 8.2 percent of all pill studies and 26.7 percent of all injection studies disclosed the contents of the placebo, according to the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Think that's outrageous? That's nothing -- the real outrage here is that the feds have NO requirement at all that researchers disclose the contents of their placebos.

None.

And if you think researchers aren't taking full advantage of that little loophole, well, there's probably a job opening for you at the FDA.

But all you need to do is look at some of the placebos that we do have information on to realize there's plenty of room for funny business.

Take the Gardasil vaccine I've been warning you about. [For some of Douglass' warnings, see for example, his report on adverse reactions to the vaccine released by the FDA only after a FOIA demand by Judicial Watch, the non-partisan conservative anti-corruption watchdog organization; or this follow-up from last month--JAH]

In one trial, the researchers spiked the placebo with aluminum, a metal that can cause the same types of nerve damage that have been linked to Gardasil.

That's a placebo "effect" straight out of hell.

In a study mentioned in the new analysis, a med for anorexic cancer patients went up against a "placebo" made of lactose. Of course, cancer patients are often lactose intolerant, and a lactose pill will certainly cause side effects.

And if I know that, you can bet the researchers behind that study sure as heck did as well.

Think about that next time you read about a "placebo-controlled" trial -- because in reality, there's no control at all.

Douglass is often pooh-poohed as a quack. I figure I need to be extra-vigilant if I am going to quote him. So I decided to look up this un-referenced analytical study. Is it a hoax?

Apparently not.

It appeared just a little over a month ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine (October 19, 2010 153:532-535)--abstract available for free here. And though I have not read the full article, every reference elsewhere on the 'net indicates Dr. Douglass is accurately communicating the study's findings. The study authors themselves graciously conclude, "Because the nature of the placebo can influence trial outcomes, placebo formulation should be disclosed in reports of placebo-controlled trials."

Respondents to the study are a bit more outspoken:

It [is a big] ethical problem when the placebo in some cases now have been shown to actually have had adverse effects on these patients['] health, by not being acceptable zero point-standards for the actual medications on trial.

. . . It is also of ethical concern when the patients having the luck of being selected for the "proper" medical treatment, have actually been subjected to medication where its positive effect has been overestimated, non-exist[ant], or even of the negative kind; and all because the treatment effects ha[ve] been compared to a placebo which was not a non-active zero-point-substance, but rather a substance having negative health effects, and thereby, in the comparison, ended up documenting a false positive medical healing effect of the medication.

Conclusion: We now have no way of knowing which medicines are being beneficial to the patients being treated, and which are having no effects at all, or which are actually having negative effects on the patients['] health.

With this report, the whole of pharmaceutical research have lost its credibility. It may or may not be a cynical act by the individual researcher and/or by his/her research group or leader. It is, however, not easy to make excuses for the pharmaceutical companies, since the actual research as a common universal procedure, should have been submitted to meticulous quality control by independ[e]nt researchers h[a]ving no bonds to the company, before a final approval was being given, and the medication was being introduced to the medical community.

This report is weakening the whole foundation wall of all pharmaceutical research. It is from now on not possible to trust any existing information about the effects and side-effects of pharmaceutical medicine. Unfair as it may be, this will affect honest and dishonest researchers alike!

There's more, but I will encourage you to read the comments for yourself.

. . . This kind of report continues to undermine my faith in Big Pharma and the FDA as caretakers of my health. How about you?

Love to buy fresh fruit from the neighbors? Corn from a roadside stand? Pie from a skilled baker friend? Such pleasures may soon go bye-bye!

Sorry. I'm so "into" research, I'm afraid I forgot how to "market" ideas!

The title of this post tells the real story of my post last night.

Is the world going to come to an end if S510 passes . . . and especially without the Tester-Hagan amendment? No. The world won't end.

But plan to see the federal government, by means of its ever-vigilant-against-the-little-guys/ever-vigilant-in-behalf-of-the-big-guys FDA, cracking down hard on the family gardeners and small-town farmers who dare attempt to sell their fruit or vegetables or homemade pies without first paying $500/year in protection money (not to mention filing mounds of newly-required government reports)!

Yes, by everything I can see, that really is the import of this egregious attempted power-grab on the part of the major industrial agriculture vendors.

I know. It seems hard to believe. But, please: READ THE EVIDENCE. Follow the links.

It really is that bad.

S510--Industrial ag businesses show their true colors!

S510 is all about food safety. That's what the bill's sponsors want us to believe. That's its title: The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

But when you get down to it, is it really about food safety? Or is it, as so many federal bills and rules and regulations seem to be today, window dressing on the problem ("lipstick on the pig"), a protection scheme for major agribusinesses, and a brilliant (hidden) means for those self-same agribusinesses to put their smaller competitors out of business or, at least, at a serious disadvantage?

The Weston A. Price Foundation sent out the following update on Monday evening:

Last week, the Senate voted 74-25 to move to consideration of S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act. After thirty hours of debate and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Senators released a final Managers Amendment that includes a compromise version of the Tester-Hagan amendment.

The compromise Tester-Hagan amendment . . .

• Exempts producers whose revenue is less than $500,000 a year and who sell more than half of their products directly to consumers or "qualified end-users."
  
• Specifies that "retail food establishments" -- which are exempt from the existing requirements to register with FDA and from the other new federal requirements in this law -- includes businesses that sell directly to consumers through farmers' markets, roadside stands and other local outlets.
  
• Requires the FDA to conduct a study that looks at the incidence of foodborne illness in relation to the size and type of the facility, as well as the risks associated with commingling, processing, transporting, and storing food, "including differences in risk based on the scale and duration of such activities." In other words, for the first time, the FDA will have to collect and evaluate data on how different management practices affect the risk of foodborne illness.
  
• Requires the FDA to consider the data mentioned above as it defines "very small businesses," which will also be exempt from the new requirements.

(For the full text of the amendment, go here.)

On constitutional grounds,I don't see how the Senate has any right to make any such rule concerning businesses whose commerce is conducted wholly within one state or another. The federal government, according to the Constitution, has the right and responsibility only to oversee interstate commerce, not intrastate commerce.

But ignoring that not-so-fine point of constitutional law, and granting the federal government powers it has no right to have, still, considering the requirements of the unamended law--requirements that place a relatively minor burden on large ("industrial scale") food processors, but could put smaller, family-run operations out of business--it seems to me that the Tester-Hagan Amendment is the least the Senate should do in behalf of small-scale and local farm sand food distributors.

Anyway.

So the Tester-Hagan amendment is currently included in S510. Good news, yes?

Maybe not!

According to Weston A. Price Foundation:

[E]ven though an agreement was reached on the Tester-Hagan amendment last week, the issue is . . . not over. The final vote on the bill has been delayed until Monday, November 29. . . . And, in the meantime, Agribusiness has shown its true colors.

For over a year, the big Agribusiness trade organizations have supported passage of S.510. From Agribusinesses'' perspective, the bill was a win-win: they could absorb the costs of the regulations because of their size; they'd gain good PR for supposedly improving food safety practices; and the competition created by local food producers, which is rapidly growing, would be crushed by the regulatory burdens.

This was only speculation until now. But when the Senators agreed to include the Tester-Hagan amendment in the bill, . . . twenty Agribusiness trade organizations fired off a letter stating that they would now oppose the bill.

The letter from the Agribusiness groups states:

[B]y incorporating the Tester amendment in the bill, consumers will be left vulnerable to the gaping holes and uneven application of the law created by these exemptions. In addition, it sets an unfortunate precedent for future action on food safety policy by Congress that science and risk-based standards can be ignored.

What science and risk? No one has produced any data or evidence of any widespread problems caused by local producers and marketed directly to consumers. All of the major foodborne illness outbreaks have been caused by products that went through the long supply chains of Agribusiness.

Agribusinesses' real concern about the Tester-Hagan amendment isn't food safety, but the precedent set by having Congress recognize that small, direct-marketing producers are different, and should be regulated differently than large Agribusinesses.

Agribusiness is trying to convince the Senators to pull the Tester-Hagan amendment back out. While the amendment is currently part of the Managers Package, the amended version of the bill agreed to by six bipartisan sponsors, nothing is certain until the actual vote.

ACTION TO TAKE

This Thanksgiving week, please take a moment to call or email your Senators to tell them to hold firm on KEEPING the Tester-Hagan amendment part of the bill.

You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to www.senate.gov to find their website (if the phone lines are busy, the best way to reach them is through the Contact Page on their website)

Oh, come on! I can hear some of my readers say. What's the big deal? Indeed, if you have read the Snopes article on the subject of the Food Safety Acts, you may be tempted to say the entire concern is overblown and tantamount to a hoax. After all, their attempt at a level-headed evaluation says the grounds for concerns expressed about these bills possibly "eliminat[ing] home gardens and put[ting] organic farmers out of business" are "Mostly False." Most of the claims about "dire results citizens would face should the bill pass . . . [were/are] unwarranted by anything stated within the bill itself."

Whew! Relax! Take a deep breath!

. . . Interesting, then, to see the same Snopes article suggest that "Sources such as the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund are better starting points for grasping some of the issues regarding how [the bill] might affect small farmers."

So let's go to the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) website and find out what they have to say.

The Snopes article, written in early 2009, actually links to an article that has to do with a bill that is now out of date.

So let us take an article that deals with the situation we face today.

Sign the petition to Reject S.510, it begins. "More than ever S510 represents a major threat to the local food movement, states' autonomy to regulate food, and the country's ability to become self-sufficient in food production," it continues.

Whoa! What?!?

Because S510 is really a parallel to a House Bill (HR2749), and the arguments for and against one are generally good for and against the other, I am taking the best material from articles about both bills to help you understand the issues at stake.

In HR 2749’s Real Impacts: a Response to Consumers’ Union, FTCLDF writes,

The FTCLDF agrees that the industrial food safety system has serious flaws and needs to be fixed. The country has seen numerous outbreaks of foodborne illnesses caused by imported foods or domestic foods that were processed in huge facilities and shipped throughout the country. Unfortunately, [the bill] does not focus FDA’s efforts on these very real problems. Instead, it creates a regulatory framework that will heavily burden the small farms and local food processors, the very people who provide a safe, healthy alternative to the industrial food supply.

Food safety is a priority shared by everyone. The FTCLDF calls on [proponents of the bill] to explain exactly how the bill would address the industrial food supply problems without harming the local food movement. The fact that massive, industrial food companies, such as Peanut Corporation of America, have killed or sickened people is a strong argument for regulating such companies, and we applaud CU’s efforts to improve the industrial food supply. But the wrongs committed by these companies are not a valid basis for harming the hundreds of thousands of safe, healthy small farms and artisan producers who will be burdened, or even driven out of business, by [the bill].

FTCLDF then goes into detail about the problems:

• $500 Annual Registration Fee (not to mention paperwork required to report to the FDA) for any "facility" that holds, processes, or manufactures food.
  

  While the statute excludes “farms,” the FDA’s current regulations take a very narrow view of what qualifies. Under the existing regulations, a place that grows food and does any processing of that food for sale [is] not . . . a farm, and thus would be subject to [the bill]. . . . In other words, a farm that washes greens, cut vegetables, or dries fruit before selling it would be forced to register and pay the annual fee under the regulatory definition of “farm.”
  
  Currently, FDA has a guidance document that modifies the regulation and allows “farms” to process food so long as the ingredients are grown on the same farm. [However, e]ven under the guidance document, many small farms and artisanal producers could be required to register. FDA has not strictly enforced this requirement so far, but that is no guarantee about future actions by the agency. And if the agency were to revoke the guidance document and enforce the registration requirement in accordance with the definition of “farm” contained in the regulations, many farms would be required to register and, under the FSEA, pay an annual fee.
  
  Moreover, farms are not the only issue. There are thousands of individuals who are making artisan foods, such as making jams, breads, fermented vegetables, cheese, or other foods, which they sell to directly to customers at local farmers markets and similar venues. All of these individuals would be forced to pay an annual fee of $500 to the FDA and comply with extensive paperwork burdens. Notably, the fee is the same regardless of whether it applies to an individual selling a few hundred dollars worth of product or a multi-million dollar company shipping products all over the country.
  
  It is not equitable for a local grandmother making jam from farmers’ excess fruit to have to pay the same fee as a Heinz processing plant. Nor does the FTCLDF believe local artisan food processor should be subject to the same extensive paperwork requirements as the massive industrial processing plants.

• Regulation of how farms grow and harvest crops.
  
  FTCLDF agrees . . . that [the bill] does not call for the elimination of organic practices. However, the bill’s provision directing the [FDA] to set standards for how food is grown and harvested is very troubling. For example, after the E. coli outbreak linked to spinach that was grown in California and then processed and sent all over the country, the agency developed guidelines that were based entirely on the industrial agriculture model. . . . The guidelines were expensive, burdensome, and wholly unnecessary for small, diversified farms.
  
  After FTCLDF issued its first alert, [the Food Safety bill] was amended to direct FDA “to take into consideration, consistent with ensuring enforceable public health protection, the impact on small scale and diversified farms . . .”While this is an encouraging step, it does not provide sufficient protection.
  
  The FDA has yet to demonstrate that it has any understanding whatsoever of the needs of small scale and diversified farms. And the new language does not prevent FDA from developing standards that drive such farms out of business under the guise of developing “enforceable standards.”
  
  No one has demonstrated any need for FDA to regulate growing practices on small and diversified farms. No major outbreaks have been traced to such farms. There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by granting FDA this authority.
  
• And the list continues . . .

How truly problematic is this legislation? And how necessary is it to begin with? What is it really meant to address?

I thought the following articles were enlightening.

The September 2010 Acres USA magazine includes a brief report that references an article in Food Safety News. How did E. coli O145 infect romaine lettuce that then sickened people around the country? The Acres USA author notes,

One of the largest cattle feedlots in the country is located about 20 miles from the heart of Arizona's leafy green production in the Gila and Dome Valleys. Conditions in the feedlot produce huge volumes of mud, as dirt mix manure and water. When dry, hot, windy weather hits, the mud dries, the cattle breakdown clumps into dust, and the dust blows, often for many miles.

The FDA is pushing ahead with the process of establishing new leafy green food safety regulations. The new requirements fail to target . . . sick or stressed cattle shedding E. coli . . . and other [pathogens] in their manure.

Then there's the article Risk, bacteria, and the tragedy of food-safety reform from Grist.org:

It is impossible, it seems, to come up with a policy that zeroes in on the real systematic risk of the food system: the exponential expansion of hazard that comes from concentrating huge amounts of production in relatively small spaces.

Clearly, highly profitable industries like Big Food wield tremendous power in our political system. Just as no health-care reform could pass that didn't respect the privileges of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, just as no climate policy could even be attempted without including massive giveaways to the very industries that cause climate change (see Ryan Lizza's tragicomic post-mortem in The New Yorker), food safety reform is evidently hostage to Big Food.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America, a potent trade group whose members range from Monsanto and Cargill to Kraft and McDonald's, supports S. 510. That alone tells me that the bill at best promotes marginal, techno-based solutions to the food-safety problem, ones that don't challenge the interests, or practices, of the food giants. As Food and Water Watch's Elanor Starmer recently pointed out on Grist, the bill's new inspection powers for the FDA are so weak that they would not even have prevented the notorious salmonella-tainted peanut butter scandal of 2009. And yet -- as David Gumpert argued forcefully in our forum -- those same powers may well prove too strong for the small-scale, vulnerable operations that are busily building up alternatives to Big Food. . . .

to tease out my point, let's consider the role of the federal government in regulating two kinds of dairy farms: industrial-scale ones in Wisconsin, and a small artisanal operation in Washington State.

In a fantastic investigative piece last year, The New York Times' Charles Duhigg looked at a spate of illnesses in a dairy-intensive Wisconsin county. He wrote:

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

After an early thaw last year, some of those quarter-billion gallons of cow shit found their way into people's drinking water. Reports Duhigg:

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

So here we have a case of vast concentration of production, and a situation wherein known microbial pathogens (including E. coli and fecal coliform) are destined to foul people's water and make them ill. This is systematic, predictable risk. The federal government's response?

[R]unoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.

Now let's look at case No. 2: Estrella Family Creamery in Washington state, where Kelli Estrella and her family tend 36 cows and 40 goats and turn their milk into highly regarded unpasteurized cheeses. New York Times food-business reporter William Neuman reports that -- unlike those Wisconsin dairies -- the Estrella operation has made no one sick. Yet FDA inspectors have found listeria in some of her cheeses -- and moved to shut down her operation after she refused to submit to a "voluntary" recall. And they've banned Estrella from selling both her hard and soft cheeses, even though only her soft cheese tested positive for listeria.

Now, I don't want to make light of the threat of listeria, a truly nasty bacteria. But let's look as the risks here. Unlike the case of the Wisconsin dairies, the risks are incidental, not systematic. People made cheese for millenia before the advent of pasteurization in the 19th century -- and in much of Europe, nearly all cheese is still made with raw milk. Small children and pregnant mothers aren't regularly falling over from cheese-eating in France. Listeria can infect raw milk cheese, but by no means does it always infect raw milk cheese.

Moreover, listeria from Estrella Creamery cheese threatens only those people who knowingly buy the product, while runoff from Wisconsin's industrial-scale dairies infects everyone who lives nearby. And the threats from Estrella remain theoretical; unlike in that dairy-intensive Wisconsin county, no one has reported falling ill from eating Estrella cheese.

And yet federal officials take an our-hands-are-tied approach to the menace of tainted water in Wisconsin, and bring down an iron fist on the small dairy in Washington. It's hard not to conclude that the disparate responses stem from the fact that industrial-scale dairy farmers -- and the very few large processors that purchase their milk -- have bought influence in Washington, while artisanal cheese producers haven't. This is food safety as protection racket.

For Big Food, the answer to these microbial dilemmas might well end up being: sterilize it all. Most cheese consumed in the United States is made from pasteurized milk; make them pasteurize all of it. And if runoff from fields sprayed with waste from massive dairies is fouling drinking water, then make those big dairies "treat" the waste with antimicrobials before spreading it.

But Bilger's profile of Sandor Katz suggests a different approach. The real systematic risks in our food system don't come from bacteria itself; indeed, bacteria is fundamental to life. The problem comes from concentration of bacteria to the point where sicknesses become inevitable. So de-concentrate the food system, don't sterilize it.

And as for cases like Estrella Creamery, the push should be to identify the source of the listeria and address it, not to shut the dairy down.

Of course, in our political system, creating a food-safety regime that targets the real systematic risk in food production seems impossible. So, while we take small steps forward like S. 510, let's not lose sight of the need to rein in the giant corporations that generate most of the risk, and nurture the small producers who are doing the necessary work of de-concentrating our pathogen-concentrating food system.

Or, back to FTCLDF and the article FDA's Ace in the Hole:

Despite there being not even a single report of illness, there have been numerous instances over the past four years where licensed raw milk dairies in New York and Pennsylvania have had their sales suspended due to positive tests for Listeria monocytogenes (L-mono), a sometimes virulent foodborne pathogen. The farmers typically lost a week to two weeks in sales plus the price of any milk the farms received back after issuing a recall due to the discovery of L-mono in a milk sample. Some farmers were also fined for adulteration because the raw milk was deemed to contain a “harmful substance which may render the milk injurious to health.”

Sounds good, doesn't it? Why should the government play games with L-mono? If the bacterium is "sometimes virulent," doesn't it make sense to assume it is dangerous?

Well . . . If that's the standard, then the government had better shut down virtually all milk and meat producers, all farms, all water processing plants, all everything. Shouldn't it? Virtually all meats and milks and farm products and water we drink: they all contain pathogens. So why these particular milk producers? Could it, by any chance, have anything to do with the political power of the milk producers who prefer pasteurization over holding themselves to a higher standard of cleanliness throughout the production process (and not only after pasteurization)?

For the last thirty-eight years, and possibly further back, there have been no reports of illness caused by the consumption of raw milk that was attributed to L-mono. . . .

Part of the reason there have been no reports of illness may be because "[t]here are many subtypes of Listeria monocytogenes; many of these subtypes have not been implicated in human illness." And, "Even if the subtype of L-mono is virulent, it still needs to be determined whether the amount of bacteria in the food is enough to cause illness in humans. FDA has a “zero” tolerance policy for L-mono, a standard widely rejected by the scientific community throughout the world. The European Union (EU) allows up to 100 organisms per gram in food at the end of its shelf life."

So what is going on here? Politics?

Check this out:

L-mono is widespread in the environment. If environmental testing at a food plant is positive for L-mono, foods produced in the plant at that time could be found to be adulterated due their having “been prepared, packed, or held under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health.” FDA didn’t find any L-mono in the environment at the Morningland plant but it was not for lack of trying; the agency took one hundred environmental swabs in the plant, all of which came up negative. The agency inspector collecting the swabs promised the dairy’s owners, Joe and Denise Dixon, that they would be getting a copy of the report but to this date no report has been received.

. . . FDA’s position is that if a food sample tests positive for L-mono or any other pathogen, any other food produced on the same equipment is adulterated. This position was also taken by the Missouri Milk Board in its handling of the Morningland case [even though, as indicated, they found no evidence that the equipment at Morningland had been contaminated!].

A Milk Board inspector told Joe that the embargoed cheese would still be suspect even if samples of it did test negative. When Joe asked the inspector, “Why do we even test?” There was no response.

Recently, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has pressured farmstead cheesemakers in Washington state and Missouri into recalling thousands of pounds of cheese due to samples testing positive for L-mono even though in neither case was there a single report of foodborne illness blamed on the farmstead operations.

Compared to the raw milk incidents mentioned above, the stakes are much higher here. Unlike the raw milk producers who can only sell in their own states due to the federal interstate ban, raw milk cheese aged at least sixty days can be sold anywhere in the U.S. and has a longer shelf life, meaning a great deal more money can be lost due to a recall.

The Missouri farmstead operation, Morningland Dairy, not only recalled over sixty thousand pounds of cheese but there is an additional fifty thousand pounds at the facility that is currently under embargo. The value of the embargoed cheese is around $250,000. In the thirty years it has been in business, there has never been a single case of foodborne [illness] attributed to the consumption of any of the dairy’s products.

The Missouri State Milk Board, pressured by FDA, has ordered that the cheese “be condemned as an adulterated, unlawful product” and has sought a court ruling that the product be destroyed. An inspector from the Milk Board has told the dairy that it must destroy all of the remaining cheese in order to get back into business; [at the time of writing, on October 13, 2010] cheese production at Morningland has been shut down since August 26, shortly after the Milk Board was notified by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) that samples of Morningland’s cheese products had tested positive for L-mono and Staphylococcus aureus. [Note in orginal article: Staph aureus, is present normally on everybody’s skin and is considered protective. Most subtypes of this organism do not produce the toxin which can occasionally cause vomiting. Gastrointestinal illness from Staph aureus is self limiting—meaning medical treatment is not necessary].

The article concludes:

The cheese cases are an indicator of what could happen if S510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, passes into law giving FDA mandatory recall power. The cases show how the recall power along with the food safety plan requirement [see HARPC] in the bill would be an effective way for the agency to cripple raw dairy producers who have harmed no one with their products. If S510 passes, state agencies and laboratories will be getting more funding from FDA and the influence of the agency on states in pushing its anti-raw milk agenda will increase. In working toward this end, “Listeria monocytogenes,” in Joe Dixon’s words, “can be FDA’s ace in the hole.”

For more on this subject, please see the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance . . . or look up tester-hagan amendment or food safety modernization act.

It is time to put an end to colossal businesses calling the shots in Washington for their own benefit!

Can organic (as opposed to chemical-based) agriculture feed the world?

If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma or watched Food, Inc., you have been introduced to Joel Salatin, the owner and proprietor of Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Readers of Acres USA are also well familiar with him; he is a regular columnist.

In the September 2010 issue of Acres USA, Salatin addressed "by far and away the most frequently asked question" he is asked. Specifically: "Ecological farming--compost and pastured livestock and all: It sounds nice, but can it really feed the world?"

Common answer, "even true blue defenders of the ecological/local food approach" offer: "Well, . . ." (embarrased silence).

Salatin suggests we should take an historical view. And if we do, we may find a different, very well-informed answer.

I like history. I am intrigued by the answer he suggests. I hope to do further study to find out exactly how accurate his claims really are.

First thing to note: Scientific agriculture, whether chemical or organic/biodynamic, is a relatively recent phenomenon. "Up until 1900, both the United States and Australia had plenty of new ground to exploit. Although the American colonial period wore out land, the virgin soils of western expansion always offered an alternative." As a result, no one (at least not here in the United States) was paying much attention to how one might replenish the soil.

By the 1930s and the dust bowls, no one could remain indifferent. It was becoming obvious to all: there were major problems afoot with agriculture as it had been and was still being practiced.

Right about then, however, there was a great divide. One group followed a guy named Justus von Liebig, the father of the [chemical, NPK (Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus)-based] fertilizer industry, the other listened to a guy named Albert Howard, a man often viewed as the father of organic agriculture.

Transfixed by von Liebig's prescient claim that organic and inorganic chemistry were really one and the same and that all the organic compounds one could find in nature would eventually be synthesized through human ingenuity, the von Liebig group pursued the idea (here expressed in a slightly over-simplified form, but really way too close to the truth for comfort) "that living things were only configurations of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. No microorganisms in the soil, no fungi, no molds—-just these three elements." [See my posts about Microbes and Soil and What Happened with the Nematodes?]

And the other group? Well, they quietly--and sometimes not so quietly; think of J.I. Rodale and Rodale Publishing--pursued their own path that sought to understand and utilize "the complexity of biological systems."

Where would we be today in world agriculture if a little event called World War II hadn't intervened and "focused unprecedented brainpower and economic investment on explosives, which interestingly, were primarily nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus"?

"America spared nothing to develop the chemistry, production and distribution for munitions," Salatin writes.

This simultaneous research and development favored the chemical approach. In short, the Pentagon paid for the ancillary and related innovation necessary to metabolize Liebig's NPK discovery and make it widely useful. By the end of the war, the huge and highly profitable munitions companies could take their development, paid for by the war effort, and unleash it on agriculture.

And the organic/biodynamic agriculturalists? They continued to plod along, without government subsidy, doing what they could to improve their understanding and their practices and methods.

It's as if in 1950, at the threshold of the industrial economy's golden age and with urbanization in full swing, farmers came to a one-mile track meet, a race to meet the burgeoning demand for food with fewer farmers. The race would be four laps around the track. One side started on the starting line. The chemical side started with a two-lap head start.

"Make no mistake," Salatin opines,

if we [I imagine he is talking about human beings in general] had had a Manhattan Project to capitalize on Howard and [André] Voisin, not only would we have fed the world during that time, but today we would not have a Rhode Island-size dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We would not have lost half of Iowa's topsoil in a mere 100 years. We would not have degenerated the landscape with three-legged salamanders and infertile frogs.

Yes, organic/biodynamic agriculture has lagged chemical agriculture, Salatin agrees. But at this point, "our side has not only caught up with the chemical pushers, we're lapping them. We eco-farmers do not have to apologize for anything. We built the knowledge, developed the protocols, paid for the distribution when the USDA pooh-poohed everything we were doing."

Salatin comments about a common misconception many people have, that modern organic farming is, if you will, nothing more than returning to the ways of our agricultural forebears of 70 years ago and before. That idea, he says, is completely wrong.

If you visit any living history museum in the Western world set in a time period before 1950, you will not see a compost pile. Plymouth Rock, Williamsburg, the Museum of American Frontier Culture — none of them has a compost pile. Scientific aerobic composting developed and sprang onto the world stage from Sir Albert Howard's research in India from about 1920-1940.

"One of my pet peeves," he says, "is when people visit Polyface Farm and remark, 'This is like they used to do things. Like Grandpa's farm.'"

I have to bite my tongue sometimes. It is not like Grandpa's farm. He would have given his right arm to have the infrastructure and sophisticated diagnostic gadgets we have today.

In just ten minutes I can show visitors a dozen things that Grandpa could not have even conceived: computerized, dependable, 1-amp, 10,000-volt electric fence energizers; PTO-powered manure spreaders; hoop houses with UV-stabilized, laminated 15-year plastic; magnetically charged foliar sprays applied while stomata listen to calypso music and open wide for big gulps of biologically-enhanced nutrients; PTO-powered, hydraulically-fed three-point-hitch-mounted chippers that can handle an inch of wood per 10 horsepower; a real biomass accumulator. Wow! And power steering, four-wheel drive shuttle-shift diesel tractors with automatically leveled front-end loaders. Baby, I'm levitating.

Oh, don't forget 800-pound, 20-horsepower Honda-powered bandsaw mills cheaper than an old used car that puts any farmer in the self-sufficient lumber business. How about polyethylene, stainless-steel filament, built-in fiberglass post netting for poultry, sheep, goats and children. (That was just to see if you were awake.) Good gracious, folks, this farm is nothing like Grandpa's. Electric fence fault-finders and hand-held laser range-finders to pinpoint acreage and paddock allotments. . . .

Dear people, our side has not stood still since the 1920s. The advertisers in Acres U.S.A. and kindred publications have already solved the pathogen, erosion and fertility problems that the chemical Neanderthals (to use the late iconic Charles Walters' term) are still scratching their heads about. . . .

There's no need for shame, Salatin concludes. Yes, our side started slowly. But now we've caught up and are leaving them in the dust. . . .
*******
Y'know, this is the first Joel Salatin article I have read. I knew of him from The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food, Inc., as I mentioned above. I have listened to one of his lectures from the Acres USA 2008 conference. But I am now motivated to read more of his works. The one title our daughter Amy has mentioned--and the one whose title particularly appeals to me--is Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front. I guess that will be finding its way to my reading pile soon!

As if the federal government doesn't already have more than enough to do . . .

I've been listening to lectures from past Acres USA conferences (2007 and 2008) and have heard quite a bit about NAIS (National Animal Identification System--a federal program "intended to identify animals and track them as they come into contact with, or commingle with, animals other than herdmates from their premises of origin" but that actually places unbelievable financial and paperwork burdens on even backyard keepers of a few chickens, ducks, or goats (not to mention larger animals like horses, donkeys, cows or pigs).

According to the NAIS regulations, every property on which any such animals are kept is supposed to be registered with the federal government, and, then, unless the owner of such animals also owns and/or operates the meat or egg processing plant, every individual animal is also supposed to receive a unique, 15-character animal identification number which is to be attached directly to the animal itself. And--just as FedEx and UPS now track and report the movements of every item throughout their distribution systems, so the movements of every animal are supposed to be tracked and reported to the federal government.

NAIS was supposed to be "voluntary" (ha ha!), but with federal muscle behind it, Wisconsin, the first state to implement the regulations, made it absolutely mandatory. --Interestingly, the registration system, mandated by law, is "not maintained by state government, but instead relies upon the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium (WLIC) to maintain the database of Premises ID registrants. This is currently continuing with the RFID tagging database as well.[19] The WLIC is a private interest group made up of Big Agribusiness, including Cargill, Genetics/Biotech Corporations, like ABS Global, and RFID tagging companies such as Digital Angel[20]. . . . There are also in fact only 6 RFID tags that are approved by WLIC/NAIS at this time: 2 manufactured by Allflex, 2 by Digital Angel, one by Y-Tex and 1 by Global Animal Management. All four are WLIC members." (Wikipedia article on the National Animal Identification System.

Now we are told that, as of February 2010, NAIS was being abandoned in order to

re-focus its efforts on a "new framework" for animal traceability. The Secretary stated the new framework would apply only to animals that cross state lines and would encourage the use of low-tech methods of identification.

The USDA's announcement sparked widely divergent reactions. Groups representing independent farmers and local consumers applauded the USDA's decision. But the proponents of NAIS, namely the Big Ag and Big Tech groups, expressed disappointment and issued statements about the horrible things that could supposedly happen without a centralized ID system. These pro-NAIS entities quickly re-grouped and announced plans to adopt "model regulations" (i.e. NAIS-type regulations) at the State level.

But the issue is also still far from over even at the federal level. Despite USDA's announcement, Big Ag and Big Tech are pushing for a more expansive federal program. And key bureaucrats who developed NAIS continue to work within the agency, and they do not seem to have changed their views despite the announcements from the top.

--Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF)

Oh! But we haven't begun to discover how far the federal government is wanting to extend its grip into issues for which one would think the interstate commerce clause should limit its reach.

Now comes Senate Bill 510, due for a vote any day now. Possibly even today.

And what does SB510 have to say? Well, here's a rather calm review of some of its more egregious features.

• It will "enable FDA potentially to regulate all farms marketing food products direct to consumers even if the farms engage only in intrastate commerce." --In other words, the local farmers who sell in your local farmer's market: They will be subject to federal oversight. Your neighbor who owns a few chickens and sells or gives you eggs: Such behavior will be subject to federal (FDA) oversight.
  
  If you think it’s a good idea to give FDA more power,
  
  • Here are the agency’s views on your freedom to obtain the foods of your choice; these are direct quotations from the agency’s response to a lawsuit the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) filed earlier this year challenging the interstate ban on raw milk for human consumption:
    
    • "There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food." [A--p. 25]
      
    • "There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds." [A--p. 26]
      
    • "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish." [A--p. 26]
      
    • "There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract." [A--p. 27]
  • For those who think it is a good idea to give the FDA more power, here are some of the products FDA has allowed in the marketplace:
    
    • MSG (monosodium glutamate),
      
    • high fructose corn syrup (HFCS),
      
    • aspartame,
      
    • genetically-modified organisms (GMOs),
      
    • Avandia (prescribed for type 2 diabetes) and
      
    • Vioxx (arthritis pain medication).
    If none of these items alarms you, I guess I have not been doing my job! There is strong evidence of major human health problems related to each and every one of these substances. But the FDA has done nothing to protect us.
    
    Meanwhile, as reported here a few days ago, the FDA is standing in the way of full disclosure of health benefits of good foods like tart cherries and walnuts, claiming that any producer or distributor of such products who associates any health benefits to these items--even if the benefits are well-documented in peer-reviewed scientific papers--the producer/distributor is engaged in the illegal sale of an unapproved drug until it has submitted its specific cherries or walnuts (or whatever) to a costly FDA approval process. . . .
    
    And we are interested in permitting them more power?

Linn Cohen-Cole wrote a powerful post on an earlier (and less-egregious-than-it-is-now) version of the same bill:

Wisdom says stop a bill that is broad as everything yet more vague even than it is broad.

Wisdom says stop a bill that comes with massive penalties but allows no judicial review.

Wisdom says stop a bill with everything unspecified and actually waits til next year for an unspecified “Administrator” to decide what’s what.

Where we come from, that’s called a blank check. Who writes laws like that? ”Here, do what you want about whatever you want and here’s some deadly punishments to make it stick.”

Wisdom says know who wrote that bill and be forewarned.

Wisdom says wake up.

Here’s the bill. Let’s use our imaginations and extrapolate from the little bit it reveals and from the reality we know.

SEC. 206. FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

(a) Authorities- In carrying out the duties of the Administrator and the purposes of this Act, the Administrator shall have the authority, with respectto food production facilities, to–

(1) visit and inspect food production facilities in the United Statesand in foreign countries to determine if they are operating in compliance with the requirements of the food safety law;

(2) review food safety records as required to be kept by the Administrator under section 210 and for other food safety purposes;

(3) set good practice standards to protect the public and animal health and promote food safety;

(4) conduct monitoring and surveillance of animals, plants, products, or the environment, as appropriate;

(5) collect and maintain information relevant to public health andfarm practices.

(b) Inspection of Records- A food production facility shall permit the Administrator upon presentation of appropriate credentials and at reasonable times and in a reasonable manner, to have access to and ability to copy all records maintained by or on behalf of such food production establishment in any format (including paper or electronic) and at any location, that are necessary to assist the Administrator–

(1) to determine whether the food is contaminated, adulterated, or otherwise not in compliance with the food safety law; or

(2) to track the food in commerce.

(c) Regulations- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture and representatives of State departments of agriculture, shall promulgate regulations to establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production of food by food production facilities. Such regulations shall–

(1) consider all relevant hazards, including those occurring naturally,and those that may be unintentionally or intentionally introduced;

(2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;

(3) include with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment . . . and water;

Ah, such a little paragraph, and so much evil packed in it. Notice they mention harvesting, sorting and storage operations? Notice they never mention seeds? But they are precisely what those words cover.

Come again? What's that? Why this concern about seeds?

Because, Cohen-Cole says, that is exactly what these kinds of regulations are always about: maximizing profits for Big Ag (the Monsantos and Cargills of the world). [Interesting: That is what the FTCLDF also says: "[The] FDA’s true clients are not the American people but rather the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries."

But, but . . . wait a second! What do seeds have to do with Big Ag? And why this interest in seeds?

• Watch where Monsanto is and has been going for the last 15 to 20 years, say the observers. Monsanto has been aiming for a monopoly on seed production worldwide. And they are getting closer than most of us would care to know!

Cohen-Cole writes:

When you know that Monsanto with the help of the US government plundered ancient and rare seed banks in Iraq that held seeds with a genetic heritage (a biohistory belonging to all of us) going back 1000s of years and then made it a crime for farmers there to collect or use their own normal and non-patented seeds off their own land, you see how extreme the intent to control is. . . .

The Iraqis are now utterly at the mercy of Monsanto and the US for survival itself and will have to pay whatever prices are set for food. They can no longer just grow their own and be free people. So, no matter what form of government they may ever have, as long as this is true, they are now enslaved because the control over them is that extreme. Kissinger was right – control food and you control people. . . .

In Afghanistan, people are buying and planting beans from America which at the end of the season have nothing whatever inside, the pods are empty. In Ecuador, the potatoes there do not develop eyes so can’t be planted next season to grow potatoes.

Biotech’s claim to care about feeding starving multitudes is belied by its blocking human access to normal seeds and its terminator technology (empty beans). Monopoly is monopoly is monopoly. And at this level, and when it comes to seeds which are life itself, monopoly terminates democracy as well as beans.

Please, read The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin I told you about a few days ago.

"Watch how they will be able to easily criminalize seed banking and all holding of seeds," Cohen-Cole writes.

First, to follow how this will be done, you must understand that:

1. there is a small list inside the FDA called “sources of seed contamination” and

2. the FDA has now defined “seed” as food,

3. so seeds can now be controlled through “food safety.” . . .

Farmers, gardeners, seed saving exchanges, seed companies, scientific seed projects, and seed banks, all require sorting. All are working overtime to protect biodiversity that is rapidly disappearing specifically because of genetic engineering. As Monsanto began reducing access to seeds, people around the world have worked hard to compensate.

But now the effort is to take over the whole game, going after even these small sources of biodiversity – by simply defining seeds as food and . . . all farmers’ affordable mechanisms for harvesting (collecting), sorting (seed cleaning) and storing (seed banking or saving) as too dirty to be safe for food.

Set the standard for “food safety” and certification high enough that no one can afford it and punish anyone who tries to save seed in ways that have worked fine for thousands of years, with a million dollar a day fine and/or ten years in prison, and presto, you have just criminalized seed banking.

The penalties are tremendous, the better to protect us from nothing dangerous whatsoever, but to make monopoly over seed absolutely absolute. One is left with control over farmers, an end to seed exchanges, an end to organic seed companies, an end to university programs developing nice normal hybrids, and an end to democracy – reducing us to abject dependence on corporations for food and gratitude even for genetically engineered food and at any price. . . .

There are three other items of the list which surely will be controlled as well. In toto, that little list of six items (agricultural water, manure, harvesting, transporting and seed cleaning equipment, and seed storage facilities) contains the pieces to deconstruct farming itself, especially organic farming.

Oh, there is more, much more! Please take a look at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund page about S510. As I said above, it is non-alarmist. But it ought to cause your hair to stand on end.

The article was written in September and concludes,

S510 is not about protecting the public health but rather about increasing federal control over food and transferring market share from the local food system to the industrial food system. The bill grants broad rulemaking power to FDA, a grant not merited by the agency’s track record. Its passage will cripple local food over time.

There have been reports in the media that S510 is dead. Don’t believe them. The bill could still be brought to the Senate floor before Congress’ pre-election break and it could also be brought up for a vote during a lameduck session after the elections.

Guess what? Cloture was passed yesterday. It is being voted on during the lameduck session. It is time to take action.

For more on the subject, see S510 Talking Points by Pete Kennedy, Esq.

And for a relatively easy method of figuring out how to communicate with your senators, go to the FTCLDF's Action Page.

Health insurance? Or disease and accident insurance?

A couple of months ago, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright featured a couple of articles in his newsletter that spoke to some of the issues that I've been slowly discovering through experience and sorting through in my mind.

In his lead article, Wright suggests we need to take a different approach to health insurance.

[W]hat's generally called "health insurance" really isn't about being healthy at all. It's about being able to pay for doctors, hospitals, and patent medicines--all of which are very expensive--just in case we get sick, or are in an accident. A more accurate term for this kind of insurance is "disease and accident insurance."

Real health insurance helps insure that we stay healthy! Real health insurance isn't cheap, but it's a lot less expensive than "disease and accident insurance." Real health insurance includes an excellent diet, appropriate exercise, a positive mental attitude, getting enough sleep, and avoidance of toxins, including tobacco and other addictive substances, and no more than a little alcohol.

But the most commonly consumed toxins--herbicides, pesticides, other agricultural and food chemicals, as well as artificial flavorings and preservatives--are somehow regarded as too costly to avoid.

Wright continues with a powerful argument for (doing what Sarita and I have begun to do in the last several months) avoiding conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables and eating organic instead. (See The Organic Center's report about the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods (19.5MB PDF) or, at least, the Executive Summary (1.8MB PDF).)

Are organics expensive? Oh, yes! But are they as expensive as the kinds of issues that the SAD (Standard American Diet) is creating in so many of us, the problems associated with obesity and inflammation and heart disease and diabetes? I don't think so.

On the other hand, as numerous people have pointed out, the federal government of these United States subsidizes the lousy foods (with our tax money) and then makes us pay full boat for the good stuff. (More about that subject in a later post.)

Wright concludes his article with the words,

While it's very important for optimal health to avoid as many herbicides, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals, it's also now well established that organically grown foods have not only higher levels of many important nutrients, but a wider, more diverse set of nutrients than conventionally grown foods.

Now that's really "health insurance"! Why not buy it for your family?

A couple of pages later, Wright then quotes a letter he received from a doctor (MD) who has been moving more and more toward a "natural" or "naturopathic" approach to medicine.

He wrote to Wright with the following story about "what I see in practice much too often."

I thought, "Good grief! This is my experience!"

"Dear Dr. Wright," he began,

Sometimes it is a curse to have generous health insurance.

Last week, I saw a 55-year-old woman who is very, very sick due to insurance-covered treatment with patent medicines.

Ten years ago she had her gallbladder removed. She never was told about needing to take bile salts with oily meals from then on so she'd absorb lipid-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. [I have to ask my daughter, who just had her gallbladder removed, whether she has been told any such thing. --JAH]

Eight years ago she was said to have "gastro-esophageal reflux disease" (GERD) and has taken a proton pump inhibitor ever since to suppress her stomach acid. Nobody ever told her that stomach acid helps break minerals from their matrix (for absorption), helps break down proteins into amino acids, and keeps the stomach free of intestinal bacteria. [Yeah. No one mentioned that when my doctor casually prescribed Famotidine for my gastric reflux. Oh, yes! It gave me almost immediate relief from a number of problems for which I had not realized I could enjoy relief. Wonderful! . . . Until I started reading about the downsides of this approach to acid reflux. --JAH]

Seven years ago she was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes mellitus (AODM), hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and was put onto an insulin pump (her condition was too brittle for anything else), a statin to lower cholesterol, and strong anti-hypertensive drugs. She started to get muscle aches, cramps, and very poor endurance. Nobody told her that statins interfere with the body's ability to make Co-Enzyme Q₁₀, nor did they put her on a healthy daily dose of Co-Enzyme Q₁₀. [Gee! Is this surprising? I had the same experience. "You've got elevated cholesterol. Let's put you on a statin." --Now that particular doctor also put me on CoQ₁₀, but he never explained that the two were related, nor that it might be possible to lower overall cholesterol and rebalance it through non-pharmaceutical means. --JAH]

Five years ago she started to get peripheral neuropathy (pain with numbness) and skin lesions, which she was told were of unknown cause. ("You have dry skin. Here, rub on this emollient cream.") More drugs for neuropathic pain.

Three years ago she was diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance ("MGUS"; overproduction of gamma-globulin from a single line of blood cells). Old Human tactic: if you don't know what it is, put a name on it to make it less scary.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with severe anxiety, so she was given Xanax and other psychotropics. . . .

Naturally, with all of this, her liver enzymes are up, and so is her creatinine (indicating early kidney failure)!

She is postmenopausal, but never has been tested, never been put on bio-identical hormone replacement. She can't sleep, of course, so there goes another patent medicine into the mix. . . .

Incredibly, the list of ailments and failed (and failing) pharmaceutical "fixes" continues!

Wright says this is a good description of "what 'great insurance coverage' can do to good health. It's a tragic description of how 'health insurance' can do exactly the opposite, actually insuring a more rapid progression of illness, as well as allowing disease to proceed because patent medicines never, ever address causes, but just cover up symptoms for a variable period of time."

How do you get off the conveyor belt of declining health? Wright suggests eating healthy foods and pursuing naturopathically oriented doctors like those you'll find through the American College for Advancement in Medicine, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, or the International College of Integrative Medicine. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to read a well-researched and heavily referenced newsletter like the one Wright publishes.

What happened with the nematodes?

I ended my "Microbes and Soil" post with two photos: one of a nematode that had been trapped by a fungal hypha, and another of a nematode as it made its way into the stem of a tomato plant, unhindered by fungal hyphae or any other defensive mechanisms. And my last words in the post were these:

"Why wasn't this [second] nematode attacked, and where were the fungal hyphae that killed off the first nematode?"

I didn't say anything about answering those questions. But the answers are clear. And both have to do with the soil in which the plants were growing.

In the first photo--the one in which the nematode is trapped by the hypha--the plant was growing (and the fungus and the nematode were living and growing) in healthy soil--soil filled with a huge variety and quantity of protozoa, earthworms, arthropods, algae, bacteria and fungi.

The second photo was taken of a plant that was being grown in typical modern agri-soil--soil that had been tilled and sprayed and treated with pesticides and herbicides and NPK fertilizer and in which, therefore, there was almost none of the microbial life that healthy soil exhibits.

Funny (or maybe not): The use of herbicides and pesticides and NPK (and no other) fertilizers can actually, over time, reduce plants' ability to protect themselves from predators. It can increase plants' susceptibility to disease.

As Elaine Ingham, president of Soil Food Web, Inc., suggests in her Foreword to Teaming with Microbes,

Urban dwellers and other growers have been pouring toxic chemicals on their soils for years, without recognizing that those chemicals harm the very things that make soil healthy. Use of toxics to any extent creates a habitat for the "mafia" of the soil, an urban war zone, by killing off the normal flora and found that compete with the bad guys and keep them under control. . . . If toxic material was applied only once in your life, the bad situation we have today would not have developed, but typically with that first application, thousands of organisms that were beneficial to your plants were killed. A few bad guys were killed as well, but good guys are gone, and they don't come back as fast as the bad guys.

Think about your neighborhood: who would come back faster if your neighborhood was turned into a chemical war zone? Opportunistic marauders and looters, that's who comes back in after disturbances. In the human world, we send in the National Guard to hold the line against criminals. But in soil, the levels of inorganic fertilizers being used, the constant applications of toxic pesticide sprayed, mean the National Guard of the soil has been killed, too. We have to purposefully restore the beneficial biology that has been lost.

--Teaming with Microbes, p. 9

You may be wondering: What does all of this have to do with health and healthcare?

Well, ultimately, our health is dependent on the quality of the foods we eat, isn't it? And the food? Upon what is it dependent?

Among other things, the soil in which it is grown . . . and the presence--or absence--of life in the soil.

Something to think about, anyway.

Mercury in the body . . .

My naturopath wanted to test me for mercury. Mercury contamination, he said, is a major cause of rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid problems ("I cannot state 100%, but I am quite sure . . . almost with 100% assurance: Every patient of mine who has suffered a thyroid problem, whether hypo- or hyper-, autoimmune or otherwise, I have found to have elevated levels of mercury in the body.") . . . indeed, many of the issues I have faced or am facing right now.

He said there are two ways of testing for mercury. One is called unprovoked; the other, provoked. The unprovoked test simply measures how much mercury is excreted in a person's urine over a 24-hour period; the other uses a chelating agent (my naturopath prefers an infusion of DMPS (sodium salt of 2,3-dimercapto-1-propane sulfonic acid)) to "provoke" the release of mercury and then a collection of urine.

"The problem with an unprovoked test is that mercury and other heavy metals have very strong affinities for different organs within the body. Once there, they don't let go. They do their damage, but you won't necessarily find them floating around in the body for excretion. You have to use agents to get them to release from the tissues where they are hiding." [Understand that I'm not quoting him exactly. But I am attempting to give the gist of what he said.]

Based on his input, I agreed to have the test. But I thought I would ask my conventional doctor at Kaiser whether he would authorize a test. Maybe I could save some money if I could get the test through my insurance provider!

To my mild astonishment, my Kaiser doctor agreed and set me up for that test in addition to a few others--one of which, also, is urine-based.

One minor complicating factor: the other urine-based test requires a different collection bottle. So I would have to collect urine for two days.

I figured that would be fine. I would get the microalbumin collection done one day, turn it in to the Kaiser lab, get the chelating agent injection after that from my naturopath, then do the urine collection for the mercury.

So I finished my microalbumin collection and turned it in, went to my naturopath, and then found him discouraging me from using Kaiser for the mercury test: "If you have any elevated levels of mercury within you, you will shock your doctor. He is used to unprovoked, unchelated numbers." And, moreover, "chelated urine collection should proceed for only 6 hours."

"That's fine," I said. "So I will simply not do the collection for Kaiser."

Four days later, however, I got my test results from Kaiser and the lab had analyzed the one collection for both microalbumin and mercury.

Mercury was at less than 4 mcg/L, well within the "standard range."

Well, by that point I had long since turned in my 6-hour collection of chelated urine.

I just got those results. Mercury: 29 mcg/g creatinine. Reference range (based on unchelated/unprovoked tests): less than 3 mcg/g creatinine--so about 10 times higher than "acceptable." Cadmium and Lead, too, were high (though just--and I mean "just"--outside the reference range. Antimony was at the top edge of the reference range. Everything else was either undetectible (11 metals) or well within the acceptable reference range (6 metals).

I just had hair, blood and another small urine sample sent to a different lab to determine whether the mercury in my system is methylated (from organic sources--most likely fish) or inorganic (amalgam tooth fillings? broken mercury thermometers? playing with the stuff when I was a kid? a broken fluorescent bulb?). The tests are also supposed to determine whether my kidneys are up to handling a heavy release of mercury if we go forward with chelation therapy.

Meanwhile, I realize I have some research to do. (Is that surprising?) What I have discovered in just the last few hours has put me in a mood to look for some alternative to the therapy--DMPS infusions (one per week for four weeks, then one every-other-week for six weeks)--my naturopath is suggesting.

Of minimal concern, frankly, is the fact that DMPS is not approved by the FDA. The FDA is not necessarily the world leader in pharmaceutical evaluation. DMPS, I am given to understand, is (and has been, for quite some time) used rather commonly in Germany.

More disturbing to me are other claims against DMPS chelation. For example:

• There are numerous reports concerning the toxicity of DMPS (despite Dr. John Cline's remarks about its safety being so great that it is freely available, without a prescription, in Germany). (One alarming collection of anecdotes may be found here.)
  
• There are far fewer such adverse reports for DMSA by mouth, I am told.
  
  And while we're talking about DMSA, we ought to note that . . .
  
• DMSA is FDA-approved. Whereas, as already noted, DMPS is not.
  
• DMSA (according to some sources) is more effective than DMPS for removal of mercury, lead, and arsenic.
  
• DMSA passes the blood-brain barrier and removes mercury; DMPS does not. (Methylmercury is especially attracted to and toxic to neurons, so having a chelating agent that can cross the blood-brain barrier is extremely important!)
  
• DMSA is much more convenient to use. ("The usual adult dose for mercury removal is 500 mg DMSA (five 100 milligram capsules) on an empty stomach on first arising in the morning with a glass of water or juice, and no food for another 30 minutes. This dose is taken 3 days per week with at least one day between each dose. Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a convenient schedule. This is continued for 3 months. Then wait another month without DMSA before retesting mercury levels" (John A Cranton, ARNP). My naturopath, meanwhile, has told me that DMPS chelation will take 10 injection/infusions over the course of a minimum of 16 weeks (four months).)
  
• DMSA is much less expensive. Between the cost of the DMPS and the doctor's office charges, I understand, DMPS is at least 10 times more expensive.
  
• And then, of course, there is the fundamental charge that provoked testing is simply a bunch of poppycock to begin with. (A charge countered by others that "[t]he quantity of heavy metal returned [by the provocation test] has generally correlated well to the symptom severity of the patients [they] have seen. Furthermore, the changes in metal excretion with this provocation test have corresponded well to the changes in symptom severity of the patients [they] have seen" (Mercury Toxicity and the Use of DMPS Chelation, John C. Cline, MD, Medical Director, Oceanside Medical Clinic)

But when all is said and done, I am struck with the claim by Elmer M. Cranton, MD, that "Scientific research shows that once a source of excessive mercury exposure is eliminated, half of the remaining mercury in the body is excreted naturally in less than 3 months, with no treatment whatsoever. Even methyl mercury is naturally eliminated from the brain. Mercury is eliminated normally in urine, feces, hair, skin, sweat, bile, etc. One year after excessive exposure has been eliminated, 95 percent or more of the excess mercury is gone from the body with no specific treatment."

I sense Jana's summary of what should--or should not--be done with DMPS is level-headed and appropriate. If you're considering DMPS therapy, I strongly encourage you to read her brief article.

Follow the money, Part 2

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott wanted to demonstrate that university researchers are not "in the pocket of Big Ag." And to that end, therefore, she was pleased to post a brief paragraph about an article in the Seattle Times about an Organic farming study at - gasp! - a research university.

I have attempted to develop the case that even without direct manipulation of results; even while leaving research scientists to come to their own, independent conclusions, "Thems that's got the money makes the rules." And in the world of agriculture, those who have the money are companies like Monsanto. And they are able to fund research projects that they view as favorable to their cause, and they are able to defund project that they view as unfavorable. Meanwhile, "Little Ag" as we might call most of the biodynamic/pro-organic/anti-GMO crowd, lacks the funds and, more importantly, any similar financial incentives to sponsor similarly complex and large-scale research that may prove favorable to its cause.

In this post, however, I want to push one step further along the lines of how, it appears, companies like Monsanto really are controlling a lot of the research that impacts their bottom lines and our (consumers') health . . . for good or ill.

Let me begin with a broad-based documentary book: The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin, an award-winning French journalist and filmmaker.

It is filled with testimonies of people here in the United States and around the world whose lives, they claim, have been upended due to the products and practices of Monsanto.

When I say "upended," I am referring to businesses destroyed, livelihoods wiped out, interminable and extortionate lawsuits pursued against those who, I imagine most of my readers would agree, should have never been sued in the first place. It includes detailed stories of children and adults whose lives have been threatened--indeed, whose bodies have been injured--by the promotion of soy as a primary food (at the expense of a much more diverse diet) . . . and by the use of Monsanto's prize herbicide, Roundup^®.

Robin develops these stories in detail.

For example, she describes the situation in Argentina where, apparently, soy is consumed at far higher rates than it is here in the United States. She quotes an Argentine doctor who says,

Several colleagues in the region and I have observed a very significant increase in reproductive anomalies such as miscarriages and premature fetal death; malfunctions of the thyroid, the respiratory system--such as pulmonary edemas--the kidneys, and the endocrine system; liver and skin diseases; and severe eye problems. . . . We have observed in the region a significant number of cases of cryptorchism and hypospadias in boys, and hormonal malfunctions in girls, some of whom have their periods as young as three.

Robin explains what cryptorchism and hypospadias are: "Cryptorchism is a birth defect characterized by undescended testicles; hypospadias is a malformation of the urethra [in which] it does not reach the tip of the penis." (The World According to Monsanto, p. 266)

After reading this and other similar stories, I expect you will take Dr. Mercola's warnings about eating soy even more seriously.

Back to Robin.

She quotes a French researcher who found that Roundup^®, even at concentrations significantly less than those used in farming (the scientist referenced a concentration of 0.05%, whereas concentrations used in farming are normally 1 to 2%) . . . --Even at concentrations significantly less than those used in farming, Roundup^® kills human embryonic cells. "And," the scientist continued,

When you use an even weaker concentration--by diluting the product bought in a store 10,000 or even 100,000 times--you find it no longer kills cells but blocks the production of sex hormones, which is also very serious, because of those hormones enable the fetus to develop its bones and form its future reproductive system. It can therefore be concluded that Roundup is also an endocrine disruptor.

You would think, with such powerful testimonies against it, Monsanto might have difficulty promoting its wares. It does not. In fact, if anything, it seems to enjoy the aid of governments around the world. Robin provides enough details, in general, to explain that oddity. I need to let you get a-hold of your own copy and read it.

But the following item may help explain the phenomenon.

• Many--some would say most--of the primary American government oversight agencies that are supposed to be ensuring Monsanto "plays fair" are, themselves, overseen by . . . former and/or future Monsanto employees! Possible conflicts of interest?
  
  • Perhaps most shocking, for me, was to see that Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court judge who wrote the opinion that granted Monsanto and other such companies full patent rights over genetically modified seeds. --Not that Thomas' role in the case was more egregious than many other connections between Monsanto and the government; it was "just" that I had no idea that a person of Thomas' stature would have permitted himself to play a role like that in which potential conflicts-of-interest would be so visible.
    
    Then again,
    
  • Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the Food and Drug Administration commissioner before he left to work for a law firm that was seeking to gain FDA approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone. Taylor then became deputy commissioner of the FDA from 1991 to 1994. Taylor was later re-appointed to the FDA in August 2009 by President Obama.
    
  • Dr. Michael A. Friedman was a deputy commissioner of the FDA before he was hired as a senior vice president of Monsanto.
    
  • Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) before she was a vice president at Monsanto from 1995 - 2000. In 2001, Fisher became the deputy administrator of the EPA. --Any potential conflicts of interest, there, you think?
    
  • Michael (Mickey) Kantor is a former United States Trade Representative, the Secretary of Commerce for the United States, and member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation. --No conflicts of interest?
    
  • Michael Taylor, a Monsanto attorney, is, I am given to understand, largely responsible for writing the federal "regulations" for genetically modified foods! --And can you guess what company owns patents on the genetic codes of 90 percent of all transgenic crops? It wouldn't be Monsanto, by any chance? (Oh, yes, it would!)
    
  • And on and on these lists go.
  For just a few references on this subject (that document these matters far better than I have), see Lies and Deception: How the FDA Does Not Protect Your Best Interests, Why are Monsanto Insiders Now Appointed to Protect Your Food Safety?, and the Public officials formerly employed by Monsanto section of the Wikipedia article about Monsanto . . . just for starters.

Robin and others have documented the shenanigans Monsanto engages in to discredit and destroy any scientists who dare to speak out against GMOs. I urge you to read the story of Ignacio Chapela and David Quist on pp. 246-253 in Robin's book. It is quite chilling.

If you are reluctant to purchase the book or borrow it from the library, then I urge you simply to click through to this article by Jeffrey Smith and published and commented upon by Dr. Mercola. It summarizes the stories of researchers Arpad Pusztai, Irina Ermakova, Andrés Carrasco, Judy Carman, Terje Traavik, Allison Snow, Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey, Bela Darvas and many more.

You can look these people up elsewhere on the web. Their stories, happily, are known (to those who know to look them up). Sadly, most of us are unaware of how our information is being manipulated.

For more on Monsanto, I encourage you to read Dr. Mercola's Evil Monsanto Finally Reaping Its Just Desserts.

--If you have read this far, I thank you. But I want to be fair.

There is--or, at least, there appears to be--another side to the story.

Jeffrey Smith is vilified as being a nutcase whose views are unworthy of your consideration. Are his opponents' criticisms worthy of consideration? {Note, for example, that they take on Irina Ermakova's claims about the dangers of GMO. But then, again, see what Ermakova has to say about her own work.) Who should you believe?

For more on GMOs and Monsanto, I encourage you to go to Jeffrey Smith's website, Seeds of Deception. But check out, too, Monsanto's website to get their take. And The GMO Crop (mis)Information Page.

Monsanto sounds very reasonable on its own website. "If you have questions, please contact us and we will do our best to respond in a timely manner," they say.

Maybe I will write. . . .