Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1362

The Anti-Tuberculosis Vaccine Americans Never Heard Of

TB Ward

One side of the vaccine controversy Americans are extremely unlikely to hear about concerns the safest, cheapest and most widely used vaccine in the world – against tuberculosis (TB). Every country in the world, except the US and the Netherlands (where TB is extremely rare), uses or has used the TB vaccine (known as Bacillus Calmette Guerin or BCG) in public vaccination programs. The BCG controversy was my first introduction (in 1971) to the US government propensity to engage in conspiracies and cover-ups. This happened during my second year of medical school, in the TB module taught by University of Wisconsin infectious disease researcher Dr Donald Smith. Smith had grave concerns about disadvantaged US communities with high rates of tuberculosis infection, as well as the nurses and doctors who looked after them.

Prior to World War II, TB epidemics infected industrialized countries at levels comparable to the current rate of clinical depression. Roughly one out of three families had at least one family member who had died of TB or been sent to a TB sanatorium. Once a leading cause of death in the US, TB is very much a disease of poverty. Healthy subjects can carry the tubercular bacillus for years and only develop active illness if poor nutrition – or stress – lowers their natural immune state (see

With the post World War II boom and vastly improved nutrition and living standards, the incidence of TB declined drastically in industrialized countries. However in the large disadvantaged urban centers that characterize US society, rates of TB infection continue at pre-World War II rates. This is of particular concern with the emergence of “drug resistant” TB, related to a surge of new cases in AIDS and other immune-compromised patients.

History of the BCG

Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin first began work on the BCG vaccine at the Pasteur Institute in 1908. They developed their vaccine from the bacillus that produces bovine tuberculosis, based on Edward Jenner’s discovery that vaccinating people with “cowpox” produced immunity against smallpox, a far more virulent disease. The BCG was first used in humans in 1921. In 1928 the Health Committee of the League of Nations (precursor to WHO) recommended its use in mass immunization campaigns to prevent TB.

There was strong opposition to the vaccine, particularly in the US and Britain, which delayed global acceptance till after World War II. It was first widely used in Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1948. The vaccination of eight million babies with BCG prevented the anticipated TB epidemic, which always accompanies the massive poverty and deprivation that occurs when a society’s economic and social infrastructure is destroyed by war. The BCG’s success in war torn Eastern Europe led Britain to begin using it in 1953. Between 1956-63, they enrolled 54,239 children in a randomized controlled study, in which BCG proved 84% effective in preventing TB.

More recent studies show that BCG is much less effective in preventing pulmonary (lung) tuberculosis in the third world, where patients are often too malnourished to develop sufficient antibodies to give them full protection. However the BCG is still widely used in India and other third world countries, owing to its efficacy in preventing fatal complications of TB, when it spreads to the brain, liver, spleen and other vital organs

How the US “Prevents” TB

Sadly the vast majority of Americans – including many doctors – are unaware there is a safe, effective and inexpensive vaccine, called BCG, that greatly reduces the rate and severity of new tuberculosis cases. Unlike most other countries in the world, the US continues to resist the use of BCG to check spread of TB in our inner cities. Instead the CDC recommends routine skin testing (known as the Mantoux or PPD) of high risk groups. A patient who has been exposed to the tubercular bacillus (mycobacterium tuberculosis) has a positive reaction. They are then given four to nine months of drug treatment.

Most African American health providers over fifty are well aware of the benefits BCG. TB, more than any other chronic illness, is linked with poverty and poor nutrition. African American nurses I worked with in Seattle community clinics used to bootleg BCG from Canada to immunize high risk African American children.

As I mention above, I first learned about BCG at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, from infectious disease researcher, Dr Donald Smith.. Owing to massive bureaucratic bungling (combined with an unclear amount of sleaze, graft and cover-up), American health professionals have always had great difficulty accessing effective BCG vaccine. As of 1971, the only really effective vaccines were made in Denmark and Prague and had to be imported. Smith was so concerned about our risk of contracting TB from patients that he ordered BCG from Denmark, offering it to all 107 of us for $2 apiece.

According to Smith, the American vaccine, known as BCG-Tice, was notoriously ineffective in preventing TB in both animals and humans (see Why Not Vaccinate, Three Different BCGs, Differences in Biological Activity, and Efficacy and Applicability). It was a story I was to hear often about researchers and drug company CEOs with powerful friends in Washington. Rather than acknowledging the Tice vaccine was useless and importing Danish or Prague BCG, the Centers for Disease Control gave their blessing to the use of Tice in their two largest American trials (in Georgia and Alabama), trumpeting the abysmal results as “proof” that BCG is useless in preventing tuberculosis.

The Influence of Big Pharma

In The People’s Health: Public Health in Australia, 1950 to the Present, Milton James Lewis (The Peoples’ Health) also blames the growing influence of powerful pharmaceutical companies in US resistance to BCG. Thanks to Big Pharma’s aggressive marketing efforts, the US saw a major shift in the mid-1950s away from public health to “curative” medicine based on drug treatment.

As a long time single payer advocate, I also see a more sinister racial and class bias underlying this shift. In the US, which has consistently opposed publicly funded medical care, curative medicine is only an option for patients with the financial means to pay for it. Meanwhile public (i.e. government-funded) health measures, aimed at the poor and disadvantaged, are always the first on the chopping block at budget cutting time.

How Mammograms Don’t Save Lives

A year ago a New England Journal of Medicine study revealed that mammograms are largely ineffective in preventing deaths from breast cancer. According to Dr H. Gilbert Welch, in a New York Times oped, the mortality benefit of mammography is much smaller, and the harm of overdiagnosis much larger, than previously recognized.

According to Welch, one of the co-authors, the outcome of three decades of mammogram screening has been the diagnosis of 1.5 million women with early stage breast cancer. While this number might seem impressive, mammography has only diagnosed 0.1 million women with late-stage (potentially fatal) breast cancer.  This means that nearly a million women underwent unpleasant, invasive and unnecessary treatment (surgery, chemotherapy or radiation) for a non-lethal “cancer.”

Now a second Canadian study, published in the February 11 British Medical Journal, has replicated Welch’s findings. In the Canadian National Breast Screening Study, researchers followed almost 90,000 women for 25 years. Like Welch, they found that annual screening didn’t reduce breast cancer deaths. Instead they tended to lead to over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment. In other words, cancers were found – and treated – that would have caused no problems during the patients’ lifetime.

In his New York Times editorial, Dr Welch laments misleading statements issued by the Komen Foundation and public health officials that early screening (by mammography) saves lives. The message they should be giving women is that they have a choice. While no one can dismiss the possibility that screening may help a small number of women, there’s no doubt that it leads many more to be treated unnecessarily for non-lethal cancers. Women need to decide for themselves about the potential benefit and risks. One serious potential risk Dr Welch doesn’t mention is the burden of radiation exposure from a lifetime of unnecessary mammograms.

Instead of screening all women with mammography, he recommends that health professionals only target women with a strong family history or genetic predisposition to breast cancer.

photo credit: photo credit: BC Gov Photos via photopin

 

How Cellphones Are Killing Off Honeybees

Resonance – Beings of Frequency

James Russell 2012

Film Review

Part II

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon in which previously healthy worker bees simply vanish from their hive. First recognized in 2006, it represents a true agricultural emergency, as all food production depends, either directly or indirectly, on insect pollinators. Most environmentalists blame excessive pesticide use in industrial agriculture. However the film presents fascinating research implicating interference by microwave radiation (from cellphone towers) with the special magnetite-containing cells that allow bees to navigate using the earth’s magnetic fields.

Shore birds and songbirds also use the magnetic poles to navigate during long distance migration. A growing body of research suggests excessive microwave smog is responsible for declining bird populations.

A Public Health Problem of Mammoth Proportions

As Resonance – Beings of Frequency points out, in 2012 there were four billion mobile phone users and five million cell phone masts globally. Because this technology is in wide use on all seven continents, there is really nowhere people can go to escape it. In Sweden, patients diagnosed with electrosensitivy syndrome can get government support in insulating their homes against EMR (with tinfoil no less). As yet they are the only country in the world to recognize the condition and subsidize its management.

The filmmakers acknowledge that the sheer magnitude of the problem, given numerous other sources of EMR pollution (such as high tension power lines), means there is no easy or immediate way to reduce or eliminate this major environmental carcinogen. Among other potential remedies, they make a strong case for establishing a truly independent international body to monitor microwave-related health risks, unlike the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

At present the ICNIRP is totally dominated and controlled by the telecommunications industry. As the filmmakers point out, a truly independent body would issue safe Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) levels appropriate for children, who generally begin using cell phones at age eight.

ICNIRP was forced to adopt maximum SAR levels after the World Health Organization came out with research linking cell phones and brain tumors. Skull thickness is very important in establishing a safe SAR, as the skull protects the brain from microwaves produced by cell phones. Although children have much thinner skulls, for some bizarre reason has calculated SAR based on the average skull thickness of US military recruits.

The scientists in the film also urge telecommunication companies to be more forthcoming with their own research linking microwave exposure to cancer and other health problems. Only by making the information publicly available can individuals to make informed choices about limiting their exposure.

photo credit: {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester} via photopin cc

Cellphones and Cancer

Resonance – Beings of Frequency

James Russell 2012

Film Review

Part I

 

Resonance – Beings of Frequency is an informative, well-researched film about the growing number of health and environmental problems linked to cell phones, wi-fi and cell phone masts. The title refers to  “Schumann resonances,” named after German physicist Winfried Schumann. It refers to natural low frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted by planet Earth. The beginning of the film, which delves in depth into Schumann’s obscure discovery, is likely to be off-putting for people with no physics background. Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is tough enough to get your head around, much less the concept of wave pulses and frequency. I sincerely hope people will ignore or fast forward the first few minutes. The rest of the film is well worth watching and discusses an alarming body of research about a potentially dangerous technology that was widely implemented without any testing of its potential effect on human health.

In my view, the only physics people need to understand the film is 1) that the microwaves produced by cell phones and cell phone masts, like light and radio waves, are a form of non-ionizing (i.e. non-radioactive) electromagnetic radiation 2) that by definition, EMR are intertwined electrical and magnetic fields that travel as waves and 3) that all life forms produce it. The scientist who explains electroencephalograms (EEGs) and electrocardiograms (EKGs) later in the film puts this across quite clearly. In higher animals, the presence or absence of life is measured by their ability to give off EMR. An EEG measures the EMR given off by the brain. When the EEG flat lines, the patient is considered brain dead. It’s game over when the EKG, which measures EMR emitted by the heart, flat lines.

The film mainly focuses on research linking the staggering increase of man made EMR in the environment and the sudden onset of global bee colony collapse syndrome; the sharp decline in migratory bird species and the current epidemic of breast and other cancers. Obviously the cancer link will be most concerning for most viewers. There are now several dozen studies of the cancer clusters found in people living in close proximity to cell phone masts. The film features an interview with a breast cancer survivor living near a mast who surveyed all neighbors within 0.5 km of the mast. Seventy percent of them had developed breast, prostate or other cancer, leukemia or some other fatal or debilitating illness.

The Link Between Microwave Exposure and Breast Cancer

The link between breast cancer and exposure to toxic endocrine disruptors (found mainly in insecticides, cosmetics, plastics and diets high in animal fat) was established nearly ten years ago. However it remains very troubling that large numbers of women with no genetic history or lifestyle exposures are developing breast cancer as young as thirty-five or forty. The film suggests many of these cases relate to a far more insidious lifestyle factor. With more than 500 million cell phone masts scattered all across the planet, electromagnetic smog is an environmental exposure that is virtually impossible to avoid.

Resonance – Beings of Frequency presents some very convincing research about the negative effect of microwave radiation (the type produced by cell phones and cell phone masts) on Melatonin production and the essential role this hormone plays in immune function. This is the first time I have seen a mechanism proposed to explain how wireless technology might be increasing cancer rates.

A lot of people are aware of melatonin’s role in promoting sleep – that low light levels cause the brain to produce melatonin and that this is the hormone that sends people off to sleep. Studies showing that it’s also an antioxidant (i.e. a vitamin or hormone that destroys free radicals) even more powerful that Vitamin C or Vitamins less well publicized. However it’s well recognized that the main cause of aging and most forms of cancer can be traced to free radicals attacking the nucleus of normal cells.

Recent research suggests that the pineal gland (the part of the brain that produces melatonin) can’t distinguish between light waves and other forms of EMR – that this explains why people exposed to high levels of microwave radiation produce less melatonin. Presumably this makes their body less efficient in destroying the free radicals that cause cancer. Studies showing that patients with breast and prostate cancer have lower Melatonin levels tend to validate this hypothesis.

(To be continued with a discussion of the link between cellphone technology and bee colony collapse disorder, which is decimating bee populations worldwide.)

Electrosmog

 

(The second of four posts linking cellphones, cellphone towers and Wi-Fi to cancer and other severe health problems – and the global die-off of honey bees.)

Both light and radio waves are natural forms of EMR (electromagnetic radiation) that surround us in the natural environment. EMR can be divided into high energy, or ionizing radiation, and low-energy non-ionizing radiation.  The ionizing radiation, like x-rays and nuclear radiation, actually smashes our fragile biochemistry, like the proverbial bull in a China shop.  There’s no controversy about the damage that it causes.  The dangers of non-ionizing radiation are more subtle.   Microwave ovens, cellphones, Wi-Fi, radar equipment and high voltage lines produce large amounts of EMR of a different frequency than human beings are exposed to naturally. Scientists have been concerned about potential health risks of microwave exposure since the 1930s, when mechanics working on early radar equipment complained of rashes, headaches and flu-like illnesses.

Following the release of the 2007 Bioinitiative Report (which shows European cancer rates tripling after the installation of cellphone towers), the European Environment Agency issued warnings on “electrosmog” from cellphones, Wi-Fi and cellphone towers. It’s easy to forget that all of us are constantly exposed to artificially high EMR levels – also known as electrosmog – even if we don’t use cellphones, cordless phones or Wi-Fi, or only use them at a safe distance from our bodies.

Despite hundreds of studies showing that EMR has biological effects (mainly DNA breakage and cell membrane leakage of nerve cells), the FDA bows to industry pressure to use ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation) standards. The latter only measure the “thermal” or heating of effects of EMR. And since there is no heating at the low levels emitted from Wi-Fi or cell phone towers, the FDA draws the illogical conclusion electrosmog poses no health risk. Despite hundreds of studies linking Wi-Fi and cellphone towers to cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, fatigue, headaches, multiple sclerosis (MS), impaired memory and behavior problems in children.

Electrohypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS)

Approximately 3% of the population (including children exposed to Wi-Fi routers in schools) suffer from a serious condition caused by exposure to EMR known as Electrosensitivty Syndrome (ES) or Electrohypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS). It’s a condition, well recognized by environmental physicians, characterized by headaches, disrupted sleep, chronic fatigue, depression, erratic blood pressure, rapid pulse, rashes, nausea and childhood behavior problems. In some patients, it can look a lot like MS. In fact, patients with MS often have a worsening of their symptoms when exposed to EMR.

Unfortunately, other conditions linked to EMR take much longer to develop (10-15 years). This means it could scientists take 50 years or more to collect the “conclusive proof” necessary to force the FDA to regulate exposure.

The European Position

Following the 2007 Bioinitiative Report, many French and English schools dismantled their Wi-Fi systems and replaced them with cables. The German government has issued a warning that all citizens avoid Wi-Fi use at home and at work. Likewise the Austrian Medical Association has recommended all Wi-Fi be replaced with cables. The position taken by the Swedish government, which formally recognizes EHS as a disability, is the strongest. They will remove Wi-Fi from the school of any student suffering from EHS, as well as providing microwave opaque paint and/or wall coverings for the homes of EHS patients.

What Should Americans Do?

Owing to massive corruption in the FDA and other federal regulatory agencies, Americans are still pretty much on their own in protecting themselves against excessive EMR exposure.

Yet there are still steps they can take to practice what researcher Dr Magda Havas refers to as “good electromagnetic hygiene”:

1.  Replace cordless with corded phones.

2.  Replace Wi-Fi internet hook-ups with an Ethernet cable.

3.  Use cellphones as little as possible and only in speaker mode (Bluetooth devices and regular head phones also give off microwaves – only air tube headsets are safe). Men should never carry cellphones in their or waist band, as they lower sperm production and quality (the FCC carried this warning on their website for 10 months but removed it in November 2010, under industry pressure.

4.  Do NOT use CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs – although good for environment, the erratic currents they produce are linked to health problems. Here are some energy efficient alternatives.

5.  Do NOT use electric blankets or water beds

6.  Keep alarm clock radios at least 2 meters from your bed

7.  Measure EMR radio frequency in your home and install radio frequency-reflecting window film or fabric to shield from external sources

8.  Measure “dirty” electricity (erratic currents from CFLs) in your home and install filters if values are above 50 GS units.

9.  Use “wired” – not wireless – smart meters/

10. Do not live in a home within 100 meters of transmission lines or within 400 meters of cell phone antennas.

See the 2014 midyear Bioinitiative Working Group report for the most recent peer review research linking EMR exposure and brain cancer, allergies, immune problems and nervous system effects, such as hyperactivity, concentration problems, anxiety, irritability, disorientation, distracted behavior, sleep disorders, and headaches. The BWG specifically warns against Wi-Fi in schools.

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The Cellphone Controversy

(The first of four posts on research linking cellphones and Wi-Fi to cancer and other severe health problems – and to the die-off of honeybees)

Predictably, the Food and Drug Administration has declared cellphones, Wi-Fi and cellphone towers safe, along with water fluoridation, fracking and genetically engineered organisms (GMOs). The FDA based their findings on the Interphone Study. This series of multinational, case-controlled studies funded by the UN and the cell phone industry was published in the May 2010 International Journal of Epidemiology in May 2010.

Study Shows Cell Phones Prevent Brain Tumors

You wonder how any reputable scientific journal could publish a study showing that cellphones reduce the risk of brain tumors. But these industry whores have no shame. A detailed analysis of the Interphone study by Dr Magda Havas, Associate Profession of Environmental and Resource Studies at Trent University in Canada, reveals the study was deliberately designed to minimize adverse effects. When frequent cellphone users came out with a high risk of brain tumor (meningioma), they concealed this in two appendices in the back of the journal that weren’t released to the press.

Examples of bias in the study design:

A “regular” cellphone user was defined as someone who made one cellphone call a week – Havas compares this to looking for lung cancer in people who smoke one cigarette a week.
Cordless phone users (who experience the same EMR exposure as cellphone users) were included in the control group (the non-exposed group) instead of the experimental group – whereas in a proper study, a genuine control group would have no EMR exposure at all.
The Interphone studied excluded two important age groups – those under 30 (those most vulnerable to carcinogens) and those over 60 (the age group with highest numbers of brain tumors).

Even more troubling the Interphone study relates to cellphone use between 2002-2004, when overall cell phone use (particularly among children) was quite low compared to current use. Moreover, it also excludes any data from US cellphone users.

At November 2010 San Francisco conference “The Health Effects of Electromagnetic Fields,” Dr Joel Moskovitz presented a larger meta-analysis of independent cell phone studies that points to an average of 18,000 preventable glioma (a highly malignant tumor) deaths directly related to cellphones.

To be continued.

Making Beauty and Household Products at Home

In addition to being toxic to the environment and human health, brand name corporate beauty and cleaning products tends to be quite expensive. I prefer to make my own at home like my grandmother did. Thanks to Lyn Webster, a local Taranaki woman who gives workshops all over New Zealand on saving money by living sustainably.

Below are examples of simple recipes that can be made in minutes in a food processor. I also encourage people to check out Lyn’s website, which has dozens of other homemade recipes, as well as a range of books, budget tips and other products.

Recipes

Dishwashing Liquid

Bar soap cut in chunks

1-2 Tablespoons washing soda (calcium carbonate)

2 Tablespoons glycerine

Mix 1-2 minutes in food processor. Dilute the concentrate that forms overnight with water.

Washing soda can be found at hardware or grocery stores

Glycerine can be found in pharmacies or the baking aisle at the supermarket.

Kitchen/bathroom Cleanser

Use baking soda on sink stains and bathtub rings. Also good (with or without white vinegar) for burned on grease.

Laundry Detergent or Powdered Detergent for Dishwasher

Bar soap cut in chunks

1-2 Tablespoons washing soda

Mix 1-2 minutes in food processor. Use 1 Tablespoon for light load. Add white vinegar to rinse compartment of dishwasher to prevent spotting.

Stain Remover

Eucalyptus oil

Drain Cleaner

Baking soda, followed by hot white vinegar, followed by boiling water

Personal Deodorant

Baking soda in a spray bottle (essential oil optional) or white vinegar (smell disappears after a few minutes). Both work like commercial deodorant by changing skin pH to kill bacteria.

Toothpaste

Baking Soda

Salt

Glycerine

Optional flavouring (peppermint or clove and orange oil)

Shampoo and Dandruff Treatment (works better than commercial products – kills the fungus that causes dandruff)

Baking soda

Follow with vinegar rinse for conditioning

All-purpose Anti-bacterial Cleaner

Baking soda (kills 99% of bacteria)

White vinegar

Few drops of homemade dishwashing liquid

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At Last a Male Contraceptive?

Male Birth Control?

A recent feature in GreenMedInfo asks whether Monsanto has inadvertently invented a male contraceptive. Owing to the unreliability and/or unpleasant side effects of the contraceptives available to females, women have been begging drug companies for five decades to produce an effective male contraceptive.

Unbeknownst to many Americans, the common weed killer Roundup, produced by Monsanto, fits the purpose perfectly. There are only three serious drawbacks to Roundup’s use as a male contraceptive: 1) it also causes cancer 2) the infertility may be permanent and 3) the dosage can’t be controlled because most Americans are exposed to sufficient Roundup concentrations in their food to cause male infertility.

Glyphosate (the main ingredient in Roundup) is widely used in industrial agriculture. It’s also one of a growing number of herbicides and pesticides that are classified as endocrine disruptors. This is a class of chemicals that cause cancer and infertility by mimicking the effect of estrogen and other hormones.

Why Processed Food is Full of Glyphosate (Roundup) Residue

A recent Norwegian study reveals that soy products grown from genetically modified soybeans contain “extreme” levels of glyphosate (Roundup) residue. Roundup Ready soybean plants are genetically engineered to survive exposure with the weedkiller Roundup. The idea was to make it easier for farmers to spray weeds without destroying their soybean crop. Which meant farmers had to use  the development “super weeds” resistant to Roundup. Which led farmers to use even heavier doses of Roundup to kill them.

The result, according to the Norwegian study is very high levels of glyphosate in foods containing soy additives (e.g. nearly all processed foods) and soy-based animal feed.

Thanks to a recent EPA ruling, allowable levels of glyphosate have been increased to 6,000 ppb (parts per billion) in root vegetables and 200-500 ppb in fruit. According to GreenMedInfo, these levels are a million times the level research has determined to cause cancer.

According to other research recently published in Free Radical Medicine and Biology, exposure at much lower doses (0.036 ppb) for 30 minutes causes infertility by causing Sertoli cells to die in rat testes.  Sertoli cells are known as “nurse” cells within the testicles, as they are responsible for maintaining the health of sperm cells. They’re also required for normal male sexual development.

The new study adds to a growing body of research implicating Roundup herbicide in male infertility.

Avoid Processed Foods

With the new EPA guidelines on Roundup residues in foods, the only way men and women can avoid exposure to a chemical linked to both cancer and infertility is to eliminate processed food from their diet and to seek out fresh organic vegetables and meats from a local farmer’s market.

With no federal or state regulation of labeling, there is no guarantee that supermarket food labeled “organic” or “natural” actually comes from an organic farm. The big food conglomerates are eager to cash in on skyrocketing demand for chemical-free organic food. Thus many of them mislead the public by putting an “organic” or “natural” label on conventionally grown foods.

photo credit: Vilseskogen via photopin cc

 

The Deep Politics of the Boston Marathon Bombing

Russ Baker, author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (Bloomsbury Press 2009), talks about the myriad of contradictions and unanswered questions in the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Baker is highly critical of the conspiracy of silence by the corporate and alternative media regarding the obvious discrepancies in this case. The “official” version of the bombing and FBI investigation makes even less sense than the official narrative concerning 9-11 or the JFK assassination.

Baker and investigative staff lay out the results of their year-long investigation at his on-line non-profit news site: http://whowhatwhy.com/

In the video below, he also discusses the role of the media in perpetuating a sense of helplessness and apathy in the American people and what we can do about it.

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Is Lipstick Killing Us?

A study in the May 2, 2013 Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that commercial lipstick and lip gloss contain potentially hazardous levels of heavy metals, such as aluminum, cadmium, chromium and manganese. The study also notes that young people (i.e. preteens and teenagers) absorb heavy metals at higher rates than adults.

The article notes that the last decade has seen considerable publicity regarding lead (which causes brain damage, particularly in children and young people) contained in lip products. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), lead in lipstick is merely an impurity, owing to high levels of lead in the environment.  Environmental researchers state otherwise. They assert that lead-containing color pigments are the main source of lead in lipstick.

At present the FDA chooses not to regulate the amount of lead or other metals in cosmetics. They do set a maximum allowable lead concentration in candy of 0.1 ppm (1 mg/kg). As their own figures indicate, the lead levels in some popular brands of lipstick and lip gloss greatly exceed 0.1 ppm. Although most women don’t knowingly eat lipstick, they inadvertently swallow it and absorb it through mucous membranes in the mouth. Moreover some women reapply it as often as 10-12 times a day.

As the authors point out, the European Union Cosmetics Directive makes it illegal to manufacture, import or sell any cosmetic products with detectable levels of lead, cadmium, chromium or other heavy metals harmful to human health.

Cadmium is a known human carcinogen associated with lung cancer and respiratory system damage, kidney and bone impairments. Animal studies have shown that exposure to cadmium during pregnancy can result in low birth weights, skeletal deformities and behavior and learning problems

Chromium is also a known human carcinogen; inhalation causes lung cancer and oral exposure through drinking water has been linked with increased stomach tumors.

The EHP paper indicates that evidence linking manganese with neurological and neurobehavioral problems in children is still inconclusive. However there are numerous studies linking high manganese levels to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aheh.200400556/abstract

http://www.alzforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=2770

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijad/2011/607543/ref/

Surely it’s high time for the US to follow Europe’s example and adopt the Precautionary Principle. Under the Precautionary Principle, the burden would be on manufacturers to prove their products are safe as a condition of bringing them to market. At present, the obligation is on women to prove they’re unsafe.

photo credit: Auntie P via photopin cc