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CDC Warns Against Too Much Fluoride in Kids’ Toothpaste, Ignores Harms From Fluoridated Water

By  Dr. Joseph Mercola

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns against children using too much toothpaste, but fluoridated water is an even more significant source of harmful fluoride exposure, experts say.

Story at-a-glance:According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40% of children between the ages of 3 and 6 use potentially dangerous amounts of toothpaste.The CDC and American Dental Association (ADA) recommend using no more than a pea-sized amount for children in this age group, and those younger than 3 should use no more than the size of a rice grain on their toothbrush.Fluoride-containing toothpastes have a warning on their label stating that “If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.”While swallowing toothpaste is recognized as a cause for concern, health officials say drinking fluoridated water not only is safe, but beneficial for your teeth.Fluoridated water is a far more significant source of fluoride exposure than toothpaste. Research shows the prevalence of dental fluorosis among 10- to 12-year-olds in three Ecuadorian provinces is nearly 90%; a positive statistical relationship was found between dental fluorosis and consumption of bottled beverages.

According to the CDC, 40% of children between the ages of 3 and 6 use potentially dangerous amounts of toothpaste.

The CDC and ADA recommend using no more than a pea-sized amount for children in this age group, and those younger than 3 should use no more than the size of a rice grain on their toothbrush.

The problem with using excessive amounts of toothpaste has to do with the fluoride it contains. If you look closely, you’ll find fluoride-containing toothpastes have a warning on their label stating that “If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.”

This warning was made mandatory for fluoride-containing dental products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 1997.

Ironically, while swallowing toothpaste is recognized as a cause for concern, we’re supposed to believe that drinking fluoridated water in any quantity is not only safe but beneficial for our teeth.

Too much fluoride causes dental fluorosis

The fact of the matter is that fluoride is a toxic substance with no known biological imperative. Researchers have even questioned its efficacy as a topical anticaries prophylactic.

Dental caries are caused by the demineralization of your teeth by the acids formed during the bacterial fermentation of dietary sugars. Demineralization is countered by the deposit of minerals from your saliva. However, the remineralization process is a slow one, and fluoride is said to prevent dental caries by enhancing this remineralization.

The problem is that your teeth do not actually rely on fluoride for remineralization. What’s more, research has concluded that the protective shield fluoride forms on teeth is up to 100 times thinner than previously believed.

It has long been believed that fluoride changes the main mineral in tooth enamel, hydroxyapatite, into a more-decay resistant material called fluorapatite.

However, the researchers found that the fluorapatite layer formed in this way is only 6 nanometers thick — meaning it would take almost 10,000 such layers to span the width of a human hair.

As noted by the authors, “it has to be asked whether such narrow … layers really can act as protective layers for the enamel.”

Meanwhile, fluoride has been shown to cause significant systemic harm when ingested, which is part and parcel of the CDC’s 2019 warning against using too much toothpaste. As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Brushing with too much toothpaste can damage enamel, as children could swallow too much fluoride while their teeth are developing, the CDC says. This can cause dental fluorosis, white marks and discoloration of teeth.”

However, dental fluorosis is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fluoride damage. For example, evidence shows fluoride is an endocrine disruptor that can affect your bones, brain, thyroid gland, pineal gland and even your blood sugar level. Importantly, it’s a known neurotoxin, shown to lower IQ in children.

Over half of U.S. kids have fluoride-damaged teeth

According to research presented at the April 2017 National Oral Health Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 57% of youth between the ages of 6 and 19 years have dental fluorosis, a condition in which your tooth enamel becomes progressively discolored and mottled.

When Fluoride Action Network (FAN) researchers analyzed the same set of data, they found over 21% of adolescents had moderate fluorosis and 2% had severe fluorosis.

According to FAN, “The data suggests that up to 24 million adolescents now have some form of dental fluorosis, with over 8 million adolescents having moderate fluorosis, and 840,000 having severe fluorosis.”

Incredibly, the situation is still worsening. According to the most recent data, which has yet to be published, the dental fluorosis rate in the U.S. may now be a staggering 65%.

In stark contrast, when water fluoridation was first started in the U.S. in 1945, it was promised that only 10% of people would suffer from mild dental fluorosis at the then-recommended levels. Clearly, they were wrong.

In 2011, concerns over escalating fluorosis rates prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to lower the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water, from a previously recommended range of 0.7 to 1.2 mg/L to 0.7 mg/L.

However, adverse effects, including reduced IQ, behavioral alterations, neurochemical changes, hypothyroidism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been demonstrated even at that lower level, so while it reduced exposure for many, the most serious risks remain.

What’s more, reduced IQ has been seen in study participants with higher urinary fluoride concentrations even when no dental fluorosis was present, which suggests the doses of fluoride that impair cognitive ability are far lower than those that cause severe dental fluorosis.

[…]

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-warns-against-fluoride-kids-toothpaste-ignores-harms-fluoridated-water/

Scientist James Lyons-Weiler Weighs in on Snake Venom Theory

By  James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D.

Scientist James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said at least 10 people asked him about the snake venom proteins in relation to COVID-19. He proposed two possible explanations, one of which he favors over the other.

Dr. Meryl Nass said the snake venom stuff is “hooey.” My analysis says yes, let’s move on to more productive pathways.

I share two possible explanations for their presence in COVID-19 patients, one of which I favor over the other.

Snakes were first floated as a potential intermediate host organism by a very early speculative report covered by SciAm in Jan 2020 that found codon usage bias most similar to snakes of all things.

Codon usage bias is determined by the percentage of times specific codons (triplet nucleotides) are used to bring specific amino acids in place in protein sequences.

It’s suggestive, but very, very weak and has not been taken seriously by anyone as sufficient evidence indicating snakes were the intermediate hosts.

Reading the 2021 venom paper cited by Bryan Ardis, here is my breakdown:

In Italy, with 20 COVID-19 samples and 10 control (non-COVID-19 patients), 5 plasma samples from COVID-19 patients and 3 fecal samples had evidence of proteins of unknown origin detected using a protein assay that led to the finding of animal venom proteins in their blood or feces.

They sequenced the proteins and found multiple types of venoms, including snake venom proteins.

That’s it. It’s a small study.

Here’s one amino sequence from their study that seems to share similarities across many of the venom types from different animal species:

MKLVLAIVLILMLVSLSTGAEESGQEISMVGPPLYIWDPIPPCKQLDEDCGYGYSCCEDLSCQPLIEPDTMEITALVCQIESA

(Learn how to analyze DNA and RNA sequences this summer in our Bioinformatics class at IPAK-EDU taught by yours truly.)

This polypeptide has only a single match in all of the trees of life. It matches a toxin from Conus pulicarius. Here’s a photo:

Image credit: Wikipedia

Conus pulicarius, a common name the flea-bitten cone, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies. (Source: Wikipedia).

The distribution of this sea snail is: Central and Western Pacific; Polynesia (not Marquesas); Cocos (Keeling) Island, New Guinea and Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia).

So the study found venom proteins in patients in Italy from animals other than snakes, and those in snakes and the sequences of these venoms are all pretty similar to each other.

The match is 100% and extends over the full length of the sequence.

Pretty good match, I’d say.

But — that’s because it’s a match — to itself.

This protein does not match any SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Neither do any of the other venom proteins.

The study actually has no evidence and makes no claim of these polypeptides being encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It only reports that the venom proteins were found in SARS-CoV-2 patients, but not controls.

Metabolites?

Here’s a link to a news article about a study that says that metabolites in COVID-19 patients — products of the human body — can be toxic and can be like snake venom.

Here’s a link to the same story, but from a different source.

And, here’s a link to the study they reference on the human secretory phospholipase A2.

Does this mean the human body produces venom in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection?

There is no match between the human secretory phospholipase A2 protein.

Animal venoms as treatments for autoimmunity?

Now check this out, some studies are finding venoms, including snake venoms, can reset the CD4/CD8 imbalance seen in serious cases of COVID-19:

“Many toxins are multifunctional and have several biological targets which may have no relation with their toxic role. Some toxin-derived peptides are now being used to treat type 2 diabetes, hypertension, neuropathic pain, and other medical disorders.

“Some data confirm the effect of bee venom (BV) on preventing COVID-19 and improving it [1]. Some other data ignore the BV effect on preventing COVID-19 and hypothesize that less SARS-CoV-2 infection in beekeepers is due to their less exposure to other people [3].

“A low dose of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) can reduce the symptoms of COVID-19, and so, it could be used in treatment lines [14]. It has demonstrated that the rate of DTP vaccination has an inverse correlation with COVID-19 prevalence [15].

“Cobrotoxin has an anti-inflammatory effect and also can restore the CD4/CD8 ratio and perform immunoprotective activity against SARS-CoV-2 [16]. Tetrodotoxin is an inhibitor of MPro of SARS-CoV-2 and so can affect the virus [17].”

Some relevant questions:

Five control samples are too few. How many people w/out COVID-19 have the protein in their blood or feces?Were these patients treating themselves (or under the care of doctors) for COVID-19 (or another autoimmunity) with animal venoms?

We know that patients with severe COVID-19 most likely already had autoimmunity. It’s about 80% in severe COVID-19 with autoimmunity compared to about 8% in mild COVID-19. That’s a huge difference in the prevalence of autoimmunity associated with COVID-19 outcomes.

My favored hypothesis is that autoimmune patients in Italy using animal venoms to treat their autoimmunity — or to ward off COVID-19 — have confused the heck out of scientists who find those venoms or metabolites thereof in their feces and blood.

But it’s also possible that we produce proteins in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection that match venom in other species. Unlikely, but I can’t rule it out.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/scientist-james-lyons-weiler-on-snake-venom-theory/

Humilitainment: How to Control the Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

Desultory Heroics

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”—Professor Neil Postman

Once again, the programming has changed.

Like clockwork, the wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis has shifted gears.

We have gone fromCOVID-19 lockdownstoTrump-Biden election dramato theRussia-Ukraine crisisto theKetanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearingstoWill Smith’s on-camera assault of comedian Chris Rockat the Academy Awards Ceremony.

The distractions, distortions, and political theater just keep coming.

The ongoing reality…

View original post 2,218 more words

German military bioweapons discovered in Ukraine

Dr Edldy Betterman

Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative at the United Nations office in Geneva, says that dangerous military biological weapons funded by Germany have been discovered in Ukraine.

According to Gatilov, the German Foreign Ministry and the German Armed Forces were funding a project to investigate the potential of deadly diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever to spread among humans, though the public knew nothing about it.

At the plenary session of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva on March 31, Gatilov demanded that this program, along with many others funded by the United States, be fully investigated. Georgia and Great Britain, he added, are also involved.

Ukraine appears to be the place where NATO countries outsource much of their biological weapons research programs. Ukraine is a playground, of sorts, where the “elites” have been engaged in all sorts of criminal activity that they might not have been able to get away with in other countries.

We now know that the German Institute for Tropical Medicine was conspiring with the Ministry of Health in Ukraine to conduct experiments using blood samples collected from various Slavic ethnic groups. German specialists would regularly visit Ukrainian hospitals in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa and Lemberg to engage in questionable research using these samples.

In many cases, diseases appear to have been released within the local population and studied for transmissibility and severity. U.S.-run biolabs were also involved, and so was the Friedrich Löffler Institute for Animal Health.

Are the U.S. and NATO engaged in ethnic warfare, using Ukraine as their testing grounds?

According to Gatilov, more than 30 U.S.-led biolabs in Ukraine participated in the research, which was heavily funded by U.S. taxpayers via the Pentagon. Other parties involved include Black and Veach, Metabiota and CH2M Hill.

Hunter Biden of the Biden crime family cartel also played a central role in this research. He and his dad, Joe, appear to have generated large profits for themselves in the process, as did other American politicians.

“The main point of the U.S. research was the possibility of spreading particularly dangerous infections caused by highly pathogenic influenza H5N1, pathogens for hemorrhagic fever, [coronaviruses’, etc.,” reported Newspunch.

“Six virus families and three types of pathogenic bacteria have been isolated. These are characterized by resistance to drugs and rapid spread from animal to humans. Also, they have natural sources in both Ukraine and Russia, and their deployment can be disguised as a natural outbreak,” Gatilov said.

Gatilov further warned that bioweapons research in Ukraine appears to have been custom-tailored to target certain ethnic groups. This is evident in the Slavic-centric blood samples that were sent off to the Walter Reed Army Research Institute in Maryland under the pretext of testing drugs and treatments for coronavirus.

“For good money, Ukraine allowed the United States to turn its own country into a testing ground for extremely dangerous bioweapons research,” Newspunch adds.

“Gatilov told the United States that this was not ‘noble help,’ but the cynical use of foreign territory and its people for dangerous research that Washington does not want to conduct on its own soil.”

These projects were reportedly launched in 2016, though neither the U.S. nor Ukraine has ever mentioned them in any of their reports on confidence-building measures under the Biological Weapons Convention (BTWC). This strongly suggests that violations occurred, hence the secrecy.

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2022/04/14/german-military-bioweapons-discovered-in-ukraine/

Court Filing: 20 Federal ‘Assets’ [Spies] Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6

Oath Keepers member Jeremy Brown explains the group’s constitution-focused mission to rallygoers in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. The FBI unsuccessfully tried to recruit Brown to spy on the Oath Keepers. (Special to The Epoch Times)

Joseph M. Hanneman
Epoch Times

Oath Keepers motion seeks to dismiss seditious conspiracy, obstruction charges

At least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives “assets” were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a defense attorney wrote in a court filing on April 12.

The disclosure was made in a motion seeking to dismiss seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against 10 Oath Keepers defendants in one of the most prominent Jan. 6 criminal cases.

David W. Fischer, attorney for Thomas E. Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia, filed a 41-page motion to dismiss four counts on behalf of all Oath Keepers case defendants before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C.

Caldwell is charged in the indictment, but is not a member of the Oath Keepers, he told The Epoch Times in March.

“At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6,” read a footnote on Page 6 of the motion. No other details were provided in the document.

The footnote said defense attorneys “combed through a mountain of discovery,” including FBI form 302 summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents.

In addition to the information about law-enforcement assets on the ground at the Capitol, the footnote says, the Oath Keepers “were being monitored and recorded prior to J6.”

Poring over evidence turned over in discovery by prosecutors in two major Oath Keepers cases has “not found one iota of proof” that defendants “had any plan, intention, design, or scheme to specifically enter the Capitol Building on J6,” the motion said.

Fischer told The Epoch Times he could not comment on the motion or provide more details on the footnote.

Since the first arrests of Jan. 6 defendants in early 2021, there has been extensive speculation and questions from attorneys, defendants, case observers, and members of Congress about the role law enforcement played that day.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Jan. 11, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled top FBI officials on the subject.

“How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of Jan. 6?” Cruz asked Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch.

“Sir, I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t go into the specifics of sources and methods,” Sanborn said.

Cruz replied, “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of Jan. 6, yes or no?”

“Sir, I can’t answer that,” Sanborn said.

“Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on Jan. 6?” Cruz asked.

“I can’t answer that, sir,” Sanborn replied.

Jeremy M. Brown, an Oath Keepers member from Florida who was charged with two Jan. 6-related counts but is not part of either major Oath Keepers conspiracy case, told The Epoch Times earlier this year that the FBI unsuccessfully tried to recruit him in 2020 to spy on the group.

Brown said the same agents who later arrested him for alleged Jan. 6 crimes tried to recruit him on Dec. 11, 2020, to become a confidential informant. He refused. He was arrested on Sept. 30, 2021, when dozens of federal agents swarmed his Florida property.

[…]

Via https://www.theepochtimes.com/case-filing-says-at-least-20-federal-assets-embedded-at-the-us-capitol-on-jan-6_4400120.html

The Babylonian King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC)

Episode 14: War and Society in Hammurabi’s Time

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Dr Amanda H Podany

Film Review

The First Babylonian Dynasty followed the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur (which fell following a combined attack of the Amorites to the West and the Elamites to the East) and a brief Isin-Larsa period. The Babylonian Empire devolved from the conquest of Sumer and Akkad (united by Lipid-Ishtar in 1930 BC), as well as the cities of Larsa, Eshunna and Mri  in 1763 BC. Most documents dating from the First Babylonian Dynasty consist of contracts recorded on clay tablets.

Hammurabi, an Amorite, was was the king of the First Babylonian Dynasty. Ruling from 1792 to 1750 BC, he prided himself on bringing justice Babylonia. Most importantly he released his subjects from debt. Typically owing debts to the temples for grain they borrowed during planting season, could pay as much as 30% interest (in the form of grain as there was no money) per year.

For the first 30 years of his reign, Hammurabi relied on diplomacy to maintain good relations with neighboring kingdoms.

His military survived a an attack by Elam and its allies (which had a much stronger army), and the victory inspired him to attack Larsa to the south of Babylon. Eventually his empire extended from the Persian Gulf to Mari in northern Mesopotamia.

Towards the end of his life, he established the famous Law Code of Hammurabi.* Under the Law Code, fathers couldn’t disinherit their sons without court permission and women retained title to their property after marriage and bequeath their land to their children. It was typical for women to receive their inheritance early as a dowry.

There were three social classes during Hammurabi’s reign: the Awilium (landowners), Muskenum (renters and farmworkers) and Warden (slaves). Physicians typically charged Muskenum lower fees for medical care and they paid smaller court fines. Slaves were typically prisoners of war, and unlike later Roman slaves, they weren’t put to work on large agricultural estates.

Owing to infectious disease, Babylonians had low life expectancy and high child mortality. After marriage, couples lived with the husband’s parents along with any unmarried sisters.

Although the society was extremely patriarchal, women had a number of freedoms they lost in later Near Eastern societies. Despite not wearing veils, they maintained active public active. They were allowed to own businesses, to work for temples and palaces and to receive payment (grain, oil or wool) in their own name. Typical trades practiced by Babylonian women included beer making, wool spinning, cooking, weaving and animal husbandry. However in most cases trandeswomen were either unmarried or rich enough to hire servants to look after their children. Women were allowed to divorce and have their dowry returned, and widows could choose their second husband themselves (their parents chose the first).

Priestesses and queens were extremely powerful and administered extensive temple and palace estates and workshops. The Naditu, women who lived in cloisters in temple complexes, never married (although they were allowed to adopt children and inherit land). Many became expert business women and accumulated considerable wealth.

*I first learned about the Law Code of Hammurabi in medical school, as it forms the basis for modern malpractice law and the insanity defense.

Film can be viewed free on Kanopy with a library card.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/war-and-society-hammurabis-time

The Public’s Business Ought to be Public

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jason Foster

Newsweek

Last November my organization, Empower Oversight, sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests related to the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Around half a dozen other entities have also been forced to go to court to compel the NIH to make pandemic documents public.

It’s worth noting that this didn’t need to happen. Good lawyers charge hundreds of dollars an hour or more and hiring legal talent to pursue cases full time is not easy. By forcing public interest groups to spend this money on litigation before complying with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the NIH is locking out the vast majority of Americans from accessing federal records. It takes financial resources to most effectively probe how our government operates.

Only after suing NIH did we receive any documents. In March, we released hundreds of emails in a report about the NIH deleting the sequences of viruses from a database they operate. These viruses are closely related to the COVID-19 virus. Experts say that analyzing them may help us understand how the pandemic began.

Four email exchanges stood out. First, emails show that the NIH appears to have misled reporters about why those sequences were deleted from public view and steered journalists away from a New York Times story, toward more favorable coverage in the Washington Post.

Second, NIH officials told the public that the pandemic most likely began when an infected animal sickened a human in a market in Wuhan, China. But we found an email with prominent scientists advising NIH that the sequences at the heart of the controversy suggested that explanation was less likely.

Third, we found that NIH Director Francis Collins was reviewing and clearing FOIA requests from reporters, an odd use of time by the director of a public health agency in the midst of a pandemic.

Fourth, a virologist asked the NIH to analyze the deleted sequences of viruses closely related to COVID-19, of which it retains copies for “preservation purposes.” But the NIH refused to cooperate. A few days after we released our report, Vanity Fair confirmed and expanded on our findings. It reported on many of the same emails we released, including several describing a Sunday afternoon Zoom call with outside experts, Collins and Anthony Fauci—the NIH official most prominently associated our country’s pandemic response. The weekend Zoom call came just as information about NIH’s removal of sequences at the request of a Wuhan researcher was about to become public.

In the last 18 months, two news organizations have taken the NIH to court, where judges forced the agency to release public documents. In early June, Buzzfeed published emails sent and received by Dr. Fauci, who is now chief medical adviser to the president. The public has a right to understand how the government handled a pandemic that has killed so many Americans, but the agency only made the documents public after Buzzfeed sued.

The same thing happened again with The Intercept, a fiercely independent news site which has published blockbuster stories in recent months about the NIH’s funding of research by the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that collaborates with and funds the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Last September, The Intercept published 900 pages of internal NIH documents related to U.S. government financing of research at the WIV. Among those hundreds of pages, the reporters found new evidence that the NIH was funding research many scientists describe as “gain of function,” a type of study that involves making viruses more dangerous.[…]Via https://www.newsweek.com/publics-business-ought-public-opinion-1697029

EPA Ignores Own Science, Plans to Reapprove Deadly Neonicotinoid Pesticides

By  Beyond Pesticides

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to extend the registration of several neonicotinoid insecticides, despite the agency’s own findings of evidence of serious threats to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates and other wildlife.

 Recent coverage by The Guardian of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plan — to extend the registration of several demonstrably harmful neonicotinoid insecticides — compels Beyond Pesticides to identify, once again, the agency’s failures to enact its core mission.

That mission is “to protect human health and the environment,” and to ensure that “national efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information.”

EPA has undertaken a review of the registration of several members of the neonicotinoid (neonic) family of pesticides and, despite the agency’s own findings of evidence of serious threats to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife, it issued interim decisions on these neonics in January 2020 that disregard the science on the pesticides’ impacts.

EPA appears to be prepared to finalize these registrations late in 2022; this would, barring further action, extend the use of these harmful compounds for 15 years.

Neonics are used widely in the U.S., both on crops to kill sucking insects, and as seed treatments with the same goal for the developing plant.

These insecticides are systemic compounds, meaning that once applied, they travel to all parts of a plant through the vascular system, and are then present in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets.

Non-target organisms — such as bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and other insects — feed and drink from those sources and are thus readily and indiscriminately poisoned.

The compounds are highly mobile, seeping into groundwater and soils, where they persist, causing additional insect exposure to them, as well as soil and water contamination.

Specific impacts of neonics have been covered extensively by Beyond Pesticides in recent years; some examples include reproductive harm to pollinators, negative effects on aquatic wildlife populations, and neonic lethality for bumblebees.

The specific members of the neonicotinoid family of compounds up for EPA review (and likely re-registration) are imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin, dinotefuran and acetamiprid.

This class of chemicals targets acetylcholine (ACh) receptors in insects, and acts as ACh agonists — triggering oxidative stress, reducing energy levels, and causing neurodegeneration, even at low levels of exposure.

These impacts can impair cognition (including learning), behavior, vision, cellular energy supply, and sensory and motor functions, and can be lethal.

This class of pesticides is broadly seen as a significant cause of bee losses (in both managed and wild populations), and broad pollinator decline and die-off.

Meanwhile, as Beyond Pesticides wrote in February 2020 in response to EPA’s January 2020 interim decisions, “With widespread pollinator declines linked to neonicotinoid insecticides since the mid-2000s, a growing understanding of the role these systemic insecticides play in the insect apocalypse, and similar declines in bird populations, the agency, according to advocates, has embraced not protection, but the destruction of the shared environment.

While U.S. regulators continue to embrace chemical-dependency, Canada and the European Union acted decisively to eliminate neonicotinoids.”

In May 2020 comments to EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), Beyond Pesticides added that in addition to the concerns about neonic impacts on pollinators, insects, aquatic life, and other organisms, “With emerging human health concerns being documented, we reiterate our appeal for the agency to adhere to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act’s (FIFRA) statutory mandate and withdraw the registration of these pesticides that clearly pose unreasonable adverse health and environmental effects.”

FIFRA is the federal statute that governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides; it stipulates requirements for the registration of any pesticide.

Among those is the requirement that “using the pesticide according to specifications ‘will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,’” with such effects defined as “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.”

During the past couple of decades, with increasing industry influence on EPA (most dramatic, perhaps, during the Trump years), the agency’s priorities have increasingly “drifted” from the “unreasonable risk to man [sic] or the environment” portion of that FIFRA requirement, and toward consideration of the “economic costs” portion.

Beyond Pesticides has covered this shift at EPA (and OPP in particular), which emanates from its reluctance to hinder corporate interests; learn more here, here, here, and here.

EPA released draft Biological Evaluations (BEs) for clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam in August 2021. (A BE is an EPA analysis of potentially harmful impacts of a registered pesticide on any species federally listed, per the Endangered Species Act, as endangered or threatened, or on their critical habitats.)

That BE found that “each of these chemicals is likely to adversely affect certain listed species or their designated critical habitats.” Beyond Pesticides wrote, of that BE, that “each neonic was found to adversely affect over 1,000 endangered species out of 1,821 listed under the law.

Specifically, the neonics were found to adversely affect non-target endangered species: imidacloprid impacted 1,445 species, clothianidin, 1,225, and thiamethoxam, 1,396.

Harmful effects were not limited to a specific subgroup — dozens of species were affected within all groups, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, plants, and aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates.”

A reminder that rounds out the inanity of the neonic pesticide picture: there is evidence that neonics do not necessarily achieve the results that manufacturers promise.

Research on soybean production, for example, has shown that neonic-treated soybean seeds provide negligible yield and economic benefit to the producer.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/epa-ignores-science-reapprove-deadly-neonicotinoid-pesticides/

Sit Back and Watch Europe Commit Suicide

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Pepe Escobar

The Cradle

The stunning spectacle of the European Union (EU) committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages. Like a cheap Kurosawa remake, the movie is actually about the US-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with the rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of Europeans.

It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed – in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen – with her vociferous announcement of a crushing new sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).

In practice, that translates into Washington shaking down its wealthiest western clients/puppets. Russia, of course, is too powerful to directly challenge militarily, and the US badly needs some of its key exports, especially minerals. So, the Americans will instead nudge the EU into imposing ever-increasing sanctions that will willfully collapse their national economies, while allowing the US to scoop everything up.

Cue to the coming catastrophic economic consequences felt by Europeans in their daily life (but not by the wealthiest five percent): inflation devouring salaries and savings; next winter energy bills packing a mean punch; products disappearing from supermarkets; holiday bookings almost frozen. France’s Le Petit Roi Emmanuel Macron – perhaps facing a nasty electoral surprise – has even announced: “food stamps like in WWII are possible.”

We have Germany facing the returning ghost of Weimar hyperinflation. BlackRock President Rob Kapito said, in Texas,“for the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want.” African farmers are unable to afford fertilizer at all this year, reducing agricultural production by an amount capable of feeding 100 million people.

Zoltan Poszar, former NY Fed and US Treasury guru, current Credit Suisse grand vizir, has been on a streak, stressing how commodity reserves – and, here, Russia is unrivaled – will be an essential feature of what he calls Bretton Woods III (although, what’s being designed by Russia, China, Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union is a post-Bretton Woods).

Poszar remarks that wars, historically, are won by those who have more food and energy supplies, in the past to power horses and soldiers; today to feed soldiers and fuel tanks and fighter jets. China, incidentally, has amassed large stocks of virtually everything.

Poszar notes how our current Bretton Woods II system has a deflationary impulse (globalization, open trade, just-in-time supply chains) while Bretton Woods 3 will provide an inflationary impulse (de-globalization, autarky, hoarding of raw materials) of supply chains and extra military spending to be able to protect what will remain of seaborne trade.

The implications are of course overwhelming. What’s implicit, ominously, is that this state of affairs may even lead to WWIII.

Rublegas or American LNG?

The Russian roundtable Valdai Club has conducted an essential expert discussion on what we at The Cradle have defined as  Rublegas – the real geoeconomic game-changer at the heart of the post-petrodollar era. Alexander Losev, a member of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, offered the contours of the Big Picture. But it was up to Alexey Gromov, Chief Energy Director of the Institute of Energy and Finance, to come up with crucial nitty-gritty.

Russia, so far, was selling 155 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe each year. The EU rhetorically promises to get rid of it by 2027, and reduce supply by the end of 2022 by 100 billion cubic meters. Gromov asked “how,” and remarked, “any expert has no answer. Most of Russia’s natural gas is shipped over pipelines. This cannot simply be replaced by Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).”

The risible European answer has been “start saving,” as in “prepare to be worse off” and “reduce the temperature in households.” Gromov noted how, in Russia, “22 to 25 degrees in winter is the norm. Europe is promoting 16 degrees as ‘healthy’, and wearing sweaters at night.”

The EU won’t be able to get the gas it needs from Norway or Algeria (which is privileging domestic consumption). Azerbaijan would be able to provide at best 10 billion cubic meters a year, but “that will take 2 or 3 years” to happen.

Gromov stressed how “there’s no surplus in the market today for US and Qatar LNG,” and how prices for Asian customers are always higher. The bottom line is that “by the end of 2022, Europe won’t be able to significantly reduce” what it buys from Russia: “they might cut by 50 billion cubic meters, maximum.” And prices in the spot market will be higher – at least $1,300 per cubic meter.

An important development is that “Russia changed the logistical supply chains to Asia already.” That applies for gas and oil as well:  “You can impose sanctions if there’s a surplus in the market. Now there’s a shortage of at least 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. We’ll be sending our supplies to Asia – with a discount.” As it stands, Asia is already paying a premium, from 3 to 5 dollars more per barrel of oil.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8853

833 Athlete Cardiac Arrests, 540 Dead, Following Covid ‘Vaccination’

Principia Scientific

Written by dailyexpose.co.uk

A total of 15 players were unable to finish the Miami Open 2022 tennis tournament, including the male and female favorites.

All of the players must be “fully vaccinated” to compete, the Liberty Daily wrote, “just as we’ve noted for several months, most major sports have been hit with ‘inexplicable’ medical conditions popping up in young and otherwise healthy athletes, including our report that three cyclists fell in March alone.”

The so-called health professionals running the Covid “vaccine” programs around the world keep repeating that “the Covid vaccine is a normal vaccine and it is safe and effective.”  But as of the end of last month, Good Sciencing has recorded 833 athletes, worldwide, who have had cardiac arrests or other serious issues, with 540 dead, post-Covid injection.

Post-vaccination injuries in athletes include cardiac arrest; blood clots or thrombosis; stroke; irregular heartbeat; arrhythmia; neuropathy; and, death.  With most of the post-injection injuries being cardiac arrests.

Good Sciencing is a small team of investigators, news editors, journalists, and truth seekers. They state on their website:

“It doesn’t really matter who we are. What really matters is that we care carrying on an investigation and we’re presenting the evidence we’ve found, almost all of it documented in mainstream media publications.

We’re doing this anonymously because we’ve seen people viciously attacked and threatened for doing things like this, so we’re not going to open ourselves or any of our contacts to that.”

As well as receiving new cases and updates from alert readers, they note that they are also receiving hate mail and death threats.

Good Sciencing has a non-exhaustive and continuously growing list of mainly young athletes who had major medical issues in 2021/2022 after receiving one or more Covid injections. You can view the list HERE.

“Initially, many of these were not reported. We know that many people were told not to tell anyone about their adverse reactions and the media was not reporting them. They started happening and ramping up after the first Covid vaccinations.

The mainstream media still are not reporting most, but sports news cannot ignore the fact that soccer players and other stars collapse in the middle of a game due to a sudden cardiac arrest. Many of those die – more than 50 percent.

“Most, if not all of these athletes have suffered heart problems after Covid vaccines. At the time of initial writing, 28 died. That was not normal, but then, 10 days later, 56 deaths were listed, and the numbers are climbing. Any other real vaccine would have been pulled off the market long before now. The media would be asking questions.

They would be pressuring governments. But they are not. And governments continue running TV and radio and newspaper ads encouraging people to get their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th shot.”

[…]

Via https://principia-scientific.com/833-athlete-cardiac-arrests-540-dead-following-covid-vaccination/