Poisonous Sweetener, possible link to brain cancer MUST READ

Good old FDA… they never let us down. NOT.

You can read the following article in its entirety here:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/a-poisonous-sweetener.html

A Poisonous Sweetener

By Zachary Shahan, Green Options

According to a UK documentary, “Sweet Misery,” the National Cancer Institute identified a significant and impressive increase in brain cancer starting in about 1984. Why did brain cancer shoot up? Evidence suggests that it is because of artificial sweeteners such as those found in diet drinks and food.

Scientists noticed that in 1983 humans began consuming something never before consumed by humans — aspartame, a chemically created substance acting as a sugar alternative used in diet drinks, food, and even on the table in most restaurants (i.e. NutraSweet, Crystallite, Equal).

Increase in Aspartame, Increase in Brain Cancer

According to the documentary, in 1984, one year after its introduction, 6.9 million pounds of aspartame were consumed by Americans. In the next year, that number doubled. It continued increasing into the ’90s.  This spike in Aspartame consumption parallels the spike in brain cancer.

From 1984-1987, other cancers outside the brain basically remained the same or declined. However, brain cancer rates shot up.

Scientists confirmed that the increase in brain cancers is not due to technological advancements that made diagnosing brain cancer easier and it is not a result of changes in disease classifications.

Why is it suggested that aspartame has this neurological effect?

Scientists think that it is because 10 percent of the chemical substance, after ingestion, becomes free methyl alcohol (wood alcohol), which as one scientist in the film states, is a “real poison.” Another says, “the poisonous effect of methyl alcohol and its methyl esters are well-known.” Even small amounts of this poison can lead to blindness and death. The “miniscule” amounts in our common foods and drinks seem to sometimes lead to cancer and other neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis.

Bottom line — maybe it’s time to cut artificial sweeteners out of your diet!

WHO declares 1st 21st century pandemic, news from RSOE

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic 2009.06.11 15:41:39 Worldwide The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, Sweden’s health ministry said. The health ministry said the United Nations agency was raising its pandemic flu alert to the top phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way. “Today… the Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health Maria Larsson has called a press conference following a decision by the WHO to raise the pandemic level to six for the influenza A H1N1 virus,” the ministry said in a statement. WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan was due to give a news conference on the influenza (A) H1N1 pandemic at 1600 GMT, following a meeting of the WHO’s emergency committee of flu experts, and WHO spokesmen declined to comment before that. The move will trigger heightened health measures in the WHO’s 193 member states as authorities brace for the worldwide spread of the virus that has so far caused mainly mild illness. The move to phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but not necessarily indicate how virulent it is. “Phase 6, if we call a phase 6, doesn’t mean anything concerning severity, it is concerning geographic spread … Pandemic means global, but it doesn’t have any connotation of severity or mildness,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said. “In fact, what we are seeing with this virus so far is overwhelmingly to date mild disease. So we would think that this event is really a moderate event for the time being, because the numbers are high but the disease is overwhelmingly mild,” he told Reuters Television before the committee meeting. David Heymann, a former top WHO official now chairing Britain’s Health Protection Agency, said that countries had tried to contain the virus through measures including school closures during the previous phase 5. This has extended the precious time needed to prepare for a full-blown pandemic. “During phase 5, the government and people in the U.K. have had the time to prepare for a pandemic — this has hopefully decreased any surprise and concern that might be associated with a WHO announcement of phase 6, if one is made,” he told Reuters. As it spreads in humans, science cannot predict what course the virus will take, the disease it causes and the age groups infected, Heymann said. “The severity of that disease, the effectiveness of antiviral drugs and the stability of the virus must all be watched closely,” he added. A pandemic could cause enormous disruption to business as workers stay home because they are sick or to look after family members and authorities restrict gatherings of large numbers of people or movement of people or goods. World markets shrugged off the possibility of a pandemic, as investors focused on possible global economic recovery.

WHO set to declare level 6 swine flu pandemic

Level 6 may be coming – newest update on this topic from the RSOE:

WHO set to declare level 6 swine flu pandemic — first time since 1968
2009.06.11 15:13:00 Worldwide

As the death toll climbs, the World Health Organization is set to declare a swine flu pandemic, a move that could prompt fast-track production of preventive vaccines. The declaration of a global epidemic was expected Thursday as WHO officials huddled in an emergency session in Geneva in the wake of 141 swine flu deaths worldwide, including 12 in New York City. “It is likely in light of sustained community transmission in countries outside of North America – most notably in Australia – that level 6 will be declared,” Scotland’s Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon told Scottish lawmakers. If WHO moves from level 5 to level 6 on its pandemic alert scale, it would be the first flu pandemic declared since the Hong Kong flu killed an estimated 1 million people in 1968.

On Wednesday, WHO reported 27,737 cases worldwide, most of them mild and requiring no treatment. WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan says she believes a pandemic is under way, but was seeking proof that the H1N1 strain is spreading rapidly from person to person outside the Americas before declaring a global epidemic. The world is better prepared than ever for a pandemic, with stockpiles of antiviral drugs like Roche’s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza, experts said. Sanofi Pasteur and other major pharmaceutical companies have been working on a swine flu vaccine since last month, when WHO gave them a “seed stock” of the virus created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It could take up to six months before large amounts of a swine flu vaccine are available, GlaxoSmithKline spokesman Stephen Rea said. On Wednesday, city officials reported three more swine flu deaths, bringing the death toll to 12. The City Council scheduled an oversight hearing for Thursday on the H1N1 virus. The Health Department estimated that more than 500,000 city residents may have been sickened by the virus. The highest incidence is in Queens, where the outbreak began in April. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year. Without vaccines, the H1N1 flu strain could return to the northern hemisphere in a far more virulent form in winter, cause widespread sickness and death, mass work absences, and major disruption to trade, some experts fear. The World Bank estimated last year that a serious pandemic could cost $3 trillion and cut global gross domestic product by nearly 5%.

Australian scientist says Swine Flu possibly created in lab accident

Received this from the RSOE Pandemic Monitoring System this morning:

A Canberra researcher reckons the swine flu virus could have been created inadvertently by scientists working with eggs to grow new viruses and test new vaccines. Retired Australian National University virologist Adrian Gibbs was quoted Thursday by the website ScienceInsider as suggesting that a laboratory accident may have created the virus now sweeping the world.

Influenza specialists at the World Health Organization are examining the theory that swine flu – a mix of genetic material from pigs, birds and human beings – is an escapee from a research laboratory. “I bumped into an advertisement for an influenza vaccine for pigs that contained three different viruses,” Gibbs told ScienceInsider. “Not killing off the virus could explain the whole thing very neatly, but it’s only one of several possibilities.” Gibbs, who contributed to the research that produced the drug Tamiflu used to treat influenza cases, said he was ready to be proved wrong. “Scientists are trained to be iconoclasts, not to believe what they are told,” he said. “And they don’t believe until they have really had a good go at it.”

Here are the links:

http://www.idemc.org/read/index.php?pageid=news_read&news_id=78

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/268720,australian-scientist-says-swine-flu-created-in-lab-accident.html

Swine Flu pales compared to other viruses, say experts

Found this optimistic, from the RSOE monitoring system:

Swine flu pales compared to other viruses: experts
2009.05.06 14:02:13 Worldwide

The A(H1N1) virus behind the swine flu outbreak pales in comparison with fearsome pathogens that kill millions of people worldwide each year, experts said. Seasonal flu strikes 57,000 to 96,000 people a week in the world, leaving in its wake 4,800 to 9,600 dead, according to the World Health Organization. In comparison, the A(H1N1) virus has infected 1,085 people and killed 26 worldwide in the past 10 days, the WHO said.

“This infection is behaving like what we call a seasonal flu, like a more typical, conventional influenza outbreak,” said James Nataro, an epidemiologist at the University of Maryland. “It’s not behaving like the influenza pandemic of 1918.” The 1918-19 pandemic of “Spanish flu,” described as the biggest plague of the 20th century, killed between 20 and 50 million people. The number of cases and deaths attributed to A(H1N1) remains low compared to those registered every year as a result of seasonal flu, the physician said, noting the moderate virulence of the virus. “So right now, we are trying to maintain some cautious optimism in the face of a frenzy of activity,” Nataro told AFP.

Tamiflu Maufacturing Predicted a 531% Sales Increase for 2009

This is interesting…

Tamiflu Maufacturing Predicted a 531% Sales Increase in 2009

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread459238/pg1

Click to go to the link… have a look at page 3 from this pdf, found at the above post: www.chugai-pharm.co.jp…

Might not mean anything… but you gotta admit… it’s definitely interesting considering – and 531% is A LOT.  How in the world could they make such a prediction to their shareholders…???

Lingle: WHO discussing raising alert to level 6

Click text for source link : (AP) — HONOLULU – Gov. Linda Lingle says the World Health Organization is considering raising the pandemic alert level to phase 6, the highest level indicating a global outbreak of the swine flu.

Lingle says the possible move was discussed Friday on a conference call with federal and state health officials.

She says it is not an indication that the outbreak is more severe, or more people are getting sick or dying. It means the geographic distribution of the virus has widened.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, Hawaii’s adjutant general and head of state civil defense, says the alert level could be changed this weekend.

WHO officials Thursday said there were no indications in the past day that would prompt the U.N. body to raise the alert further.

What concerns me is the discrepancy in numbers that we have heard, and what is the actual threat level of this?  Different scientists are saying different things – some say it’s not as bad as we are hearing… others say it is as bad or worse.  The thing is… if Level 6 happens, what amounts to martial law could happen very easily.  If you don’t know what that means, a quick google search will let you know, as well as the link below.  Some things are for our benefit, I understand that, but … if things are being told wrongly… I have to question… why? and the next question is obvious – if things are *not* as bad as we are hearing… then why the need for level 6?  Here is a link that I found interesting.  Whether you agree or disagree, it is worth reading.  Click the link below for the full article from prisonplanet.com:

Imposing a level 6 would give governments around the world a perfect excuse to impose martial law, even though many scientists believe the H1N1 virus is no more of a threat than seasonal flu.

On Thursday, Fox News ran a segment on how declaration of a pandemic might result in a loss of constitutional rights. “If it becomes a pandemic, you could lose some simple rights — like going to the movies,” said host Steve Doocy, who completely understated the issue.

Here’s what Fox and the corporate media are not telling you — the government has a wide palette of dictatorial options ready to go: Executive Order 12919 (would put the United States under total martial law and military dictatorship), Executive Order 12656 (allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians), Executive Order 11921 (allows FEMA to “develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency”), and a blizzard of additional EOs allowing federal seizure of all communications media in the US, seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private, seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment, seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways, and ominously seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires. This last one is detailed in the Army’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program document.

Swine Flu (H1N1) interactive map and timeline

Just saw this:  Interactive Swine Flu map and timeline

Happy Saturday everybody :)

Hi all & Happy Saturday.

I don’t have any real updates today about the H1N1 slash swine flu sitch.  Things seem pretty much the same.  I have *heard* that the WHO is considering a level 6… I hope not because a Level 6 pandemic means some other problems too that come with that… other than that, though, things are about where they were.  Mild cases are continuing to pop up… Mexico says the deaths seem to be levelling off, that’s a good thing… and you may have heard or read my post about the actual number of *confirmed* cases of Mexican deaths from the swine flu being much different than the numbers we were originally given.  If not, my post is below where you can read it.  To quickly get a summary of swine flu posts, go to the “Categories” section on the right and click on Current Events: Swine Flu Updates… it will take you to a page where all the SF items are neatly arranged in order for you to read.

I’ve mentioned a couple different sides of the story – I really don’t know what to think.  So far no deaths have occurred outside Mexico, except for the toddler who *came* from Mexico into the US and who was already sick.  It came out he had underlying health problems even before this  happened.  I am so sorry for the Mexican people dealing with this, my heart goes out to them. I am grateful that so far no other deaths have occurred, that we know of.  For updates, please see my below posts on links to the RSOE site, also don’t forget that you can contact the local public health dept for your state.

For our part, I have just been making sure my family has lots of Vitamin C (I am a firm believer in that) and of course continuing to practice good cleanliness.

We have gotten the RAIN the past few days!!!  It rained so much last night and today, I thought for sure I was going to see Noah go sailing by and waving, with a giraffe sticking his head out of a little ark window! hahaha  :P  Seriously, it didn’t just rain, it POURED and STORMED and thundered and lightning.  Which, I kinda like the storms a little bit, I love the sound of the rain and some thunder. I know, that’s probably weird.  But I don’t like seeing small rivers on the road and at the foot of my steps! :P

OH… for those of you like me, practicing a GF (gluten free) diet… found something out that I want to pass along.  The GF thing is still new to me so I definitely appreciate any little tidbit I can get.  I found out that gluten takes its own sweet time leaving the body – could be as much as 6 to 9 months. If you’ve already been gluten free for a little while and then you get “glutened” it can take about 3 weeks (my goodness!!!) to leave your body.   This was interesting to me because I think I got glutened last weekend at a Thai restaurant.  The food was great, don’t get me wrong, but hubby is a photographer and he was doing some pictures for their advertising.  They kindly served us the food that they made for the shoot.

Of course, I was very wary of whatever I might/might not be able to eat, but they were so nice and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.  So, I settled on something that I thought (hoped) would be okay, it was made with rice noodles and the broth was just heavenly.  LOL a little too heavenly.  I had mentioned to them I had a wheat allergy (gluten intolerant) and they seemed to think I just didn’t want to eat their food… that made me feel bad… I didn’t want them to feel that way.  So anyway… I had a rice noodle soup… but I noticed their soy sauce has GUESS WHAT wheat in it (Kikkoman’s) and I think there must have been some (probably definitely) in the soup.  I felt *terrible* later on.  I have been feeling so great lately that I could tell right away something was wrong. Amazing how when you get healthier, and start feeling good… you recognize immediately when things are not right.

The next morning, my skin was bloated, and my poor puffy eyes… I had the same old headaches like I used to get which lasted a couple days… I still don’t feel 100% yet, but I am better.  Next time, even at the risk of hurting someone’s feelings (which I try hard not to do)… but I will not eat something that my instinct tells me to stay away from.  And if you are gluten free, or a celiac, I offer the same advice to you.

People don’t truly understand when you tell them.  I tried to tell my husband and he kind of “pooh-poohed” it saying it was “all in my head” (OH I hate when he does that! haha) but he just didn’t understand, he’s never dealt with anything like that.  I’ve tried to share what I’ve learned with him and for the most part he has been supportive in helping me find GF foods, which I appreciate, but sometimes he acts like it’s just me.  And that is really hurtful.  Anybody GF out there run into the same thing with their family members? :rolls eyes: haha

Well, here’s hoping it will be a great Saturday for all of you… stay well, take lots of Vita C, and try not to worry about all this flu too much.  There’s not really much we can do, except use wisdom and caution. Blessings and light to each of you :)

Amy

The other side… H1N1 worse than we are hearing?

Here is the other side… suggests it could be worse than we are being told.

This is from Prison Planet (click here for full article):

A doctor in Texas claims that swine flu cases are at least ten times worse than officials are letting on, and that hospitals are becoming overwhelmed as the virus has already crossed the threshold to be considered a phase 6 global pandemic.

Dr. Marcus Gitterle, an emergency medicine physician based out of New Braunfels, Texas, sent out an internal alert which contains several stunning claims about swine flu that, if true, officials have presumably sought to keep from the public.

“After I returned from a public health meeting yesterday with community leaders and school officials in Comal County and Hays County, (name removed) suggested I send an update to my patients in the area, because what we are hearing privately from the CDC and Health Department is different from what you are hearing in the media,” writes Gitterle.

The doctor claims that the actual number of confirmed cases of swine flu is 10 to 25 times worse than has been reported, and that people are not recovering easily, as has been claimed, but that many Americans are in fact seriously ill.

… more