Beauty Products May Be Slowly Killing You.

by Cathryn Wellner


Scientists from four institutions (Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and University of Michigan School of Public Health) have come to the same conclusion as the Swedish researchers I reported on in Lipstick or Diabetes? The personal care products sold to us as body- and beauty-enhancing aids are contributing to the sharp increase in diabetes.

The new study analyzed urine samples from 2,350 women, aged 20 to 80. Participants were part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2001 and 2008. Even after controlling for sociodemographic, behavioral and dietary factors, the researchers found that women with more phthalates in their urine were more likely to have reported diabetes.

Those with the highest level of two phthalates (mono-benzyl and mono-isobutyl) in their urine had twice the risk of diabetes of those with the lowest levels. Two others (di-2-ethylhexyl and mono-n-butyl) were associated with a 70 percent increased risk, and mono-(3-carboxypropyl) phthalate with a 60 percent increased risk.

These are not the first two studies to link phthalates with health consequences. Care2 Causes bloggers have reported on a number of them:

• Annie Urban wrote about University of Missouri study that showed BPA exposure is greater than previously understood.
• Joel Boyce posted the results of a Harvard School of Public Health study that found, “If you regularly eat from containers made of the hard, polycarbonate plastic, you will get BPA into your body.”
• Kristina Chew reported on a University of California at San Francisco study that found phthalates and other chemicals, some of them banned, in 99 percent of pregnant women.
• I reported on a Swedish study that linked phthalates in personal care products with a doubling of the risk of developing diabetes.

Phthalates are so widespread that anyone who uses cosmetics, fragrances, moisturizers, soaps, nail polishes, hair spray or other personal care products may be playing with loaded dice. And the dice are loaded with diabetes.

Avoiding phthalates entirely is nearly impossible. If you want to lessen your exposure, shop in stores that carry safer products and inform yourself through some of the many online guides such as those published by the Environmental Working Group. Consumers can wield power in the marketplace when they demand change.

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Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/beauty-products-may-be-slowly-killing-you.html#ixzz21MjVnaEI

Get Off the Computer! It Might Be Making You Depressed.

By Staff | Sourced from AlterNet

To stay sane, Americans just might have to return to a 40-hr work week and ditch our screwed-up attachment to E-mail. According to a new study, spending too much time on the internet is disastrous for your mental health.

From CBS Charlotte:

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg recently studied more than 4,100 Swedish men and women between the ages of 20 and 24 for a year and found that a majority of them who constantly use a computer and mobile phones can develop stress, sleeping disorders and depression.

Sara Thomee, lead author of the study, said there was a “central link” between computers and mental disorders.

“High quantitative use was a central link between computer use and stress, sleep disturbances, and depression, described by the young adults,” Thomee said in the study. “It was easy to spend more time than planned at the computer (e.g., working, gaming, or chatting), and this tended to lead to time pressure, neglect of other activities and personal needs (such as social interaction, sleep, physical activity), as well as bad ergonomics, and mental overload.”

The study found a correlation between stress and always being available on the phone.

“Demands for availability originated not only from work and the social network, but also from the individual’s own ambitions or desires. This resulted in disturbances when busy or resting, the feeling of never being free, and difficulties separating work and private life,” Thomee explained in the study. “Unreturned calls or messages led to overload and feelings of guilt.”

Forget phone calls: E-mail is the around-the-clock work tool really stressing us out. Check out 5 ways it can completely destroy your life here.

 

Hey Monsanto -- I Want My Tomatoes From Nature, Not Your Labs.

AlterNet / ByJim Hightower

The biotech industry is willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds and our basic consumer rights.

Some people are too smart for your own good.

Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature's own good foods -- but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.

In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature's design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.

Take the tomato, truly a natural wonder. Agribusiness profiteers, however, wanted it to do unnatural things, so -- voila! -- the genetic tamperers in the 1960s and '70s dutifully produced the Amazing Industrial Tomato. It's a techno-marvel made to endure long-distance shipping, be harvested while green and then artificially ripened to appear tomato-y red and last an ungodly amount of time without rotting.

But taste? Forget it. There's more flavor in the carton. This led to the "Upchuck Rebellion" -- a grassroots movement of consumers, small farmers and local food artisans. In the last couple of decades, they've spurred phenomenal growth in farmers markets and stores that offer nature's own locally produced and heirloom varieties untouched by the smart ones.

But, look out, the tomato tamperers are back in the lab! They've discovered that a mutated gene they had bred into the corporate tomato switches off other genes that would cause the fruit to develop flavor. The answer, they say, is not less technology, but more.

By artificially re-engineering the DNA structure of the plant, they can bypass that naughty mutated gene and switch on some of the flavor genes. But do we really want to eat genetically engineered tomatoes?

Still, you can expect them to push the latest alteration of nature's marvel. I can just see the agribusiness ad: "Buy our industrial tomatoes -- Now genetically flavored!" Better yet, buy the local tomatoes, which don't need a smart geneticist or an ad to deliver real flavor.

Unfortunately, it's not just tomatoes they're tampering with. For instance, if you are parent you may be worried about the plethora of highly questionable bio-engineered organisms that the profiteers have quietly been slipping into everything from snack foods to school lunches.

Well, perhaps your own children can put your mind at ease, for science teachers around the country have been assigning a book called "Look Closer at Biotechnology" to the kiddos in their classes. It's filled with colorful images, friendly cartoon faces, puzzles and more!

The very first page makes clear that the scientific wonder of genetically engineered foods pose no worries at all. "Hi, kids," it begins.

"This is an activity book for young people like you about ... a really neat topic." Why is it so neat? Because, say the authors, "as you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!"

Fun? With genetically engineered food? That's not fun, it's serious business -- and look who's behind this book of fairy tales: the Council for Biotechnology Information.

Exactly what and who is CBI? It's a PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multibillion-dollar giants as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont and Dow. It's also now funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the industry's deceitful political campaign to kill a California "Right to Know" ballot initiative that finally would require food giants to label all products containing genetically engineered organisms.

This raises an obvious question for those of us who prefer food from nature, not from engineering labs: What are we to do about corporate powers that are so avaricious and arrogant that they're willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds and our basic consumer rights? Defeat them, that's what!

Here are three good sources for information and action: JustLabelIt.org,

NonGMOShoppingGuide.com and OrganicConsumers.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
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Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.

10 Modern Methods of Mind Control.

 

By Nicholas West



The more one researches mind control, the more one will come to the conclusion that there is a coordinated script that has been in place for a very long time with the goal to turn the human race into non-thinking automatons. For as long as man has pursued power over the masses, mind control has been orchestrated by those who study human behavior in order to bend large populations to the will of a small “elite” group. Today, we have entered a perilous phase where mind control has taken on a physical, scientific dimension that threatens to become a permanent state if we do not become aware of the tools at the disposal of the technocratic dictatorship unfolding on a worldwide scale.

Modern mind control is both technological and psychological. Tests show that simply by exposing the methods of mind control, the effects can be reduced or eliminated, at least for mind control advertising and propaganda. More difficult to counter are the physical intrusions, which the military-industrial complex continues to develop and improve upon.

1. Education – This is the most obvious, yet still remains the most insidious. It has always been a would-be dictator’s ultimate fantasy to “educate” naturally impressionable children, thus it has been a central component to Communist and Fascist tyrannies throughout history. No one has been more instrumental in exposing the agenda of modern education than Charlotte Iserbyt — one can begin research into this area by downloading a free PDF of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, which lays bare the role of Globalist foundations in shaping a future intended to produce servile drones lorded over by a fully educated, aware elite class.

2. Advertising and Propaganda – Edward Bernays has been cited as the inventor of the consumerist culture that was designed primarily to target people’s self-image (or lack thereof) in order to turn a want into a need. This was initially envisioned for products such as cigarettes, for example. However, Bernays also noted in his 1928 book, Propaganda, that “propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.” This can be seen most clearly in the modern police state and the growing citizen snitch culture, wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic War on Terror. The increasing consolidation of media has enabled the entire corporate structure to merge with government, which now utilizes the concept of propaganda placement. Media; print, movies, television, and cable news can now work seamlessly to integrate an overall message which seems to have the ring of truth because it comes from so many sources, simultaneously. When one becomes attuned to identifying the main “message,” one will see this imprinting everywhere. And this is not even to mention subliminal messaging.

 

3. Predictive Programming – Many still deny that predictive programming is real. I would invite anyone to examine the range of documentation put together by Alan Watt and come to any other conclusion. Predictive programming has its origins in predominately elitist Hollywood, where the big screen can offer a big vision of where society is headed. Just look back at the books and movies which you thought were far-fetched, or “science fiction” and take a close look around at society today. For a detailed breakdown of specific examples, Vigilant Citizen is a great resource that will probably make you look at “entertainment” in a completely different light.

4. Sports, Politics, Religion – Some might take offense at seeing religion, or even politics, put alongside sports as a method of mind control. The central theme is the same throughout: divide and conquer. The techniques are quite simple: short circuit the natural tendency of people to cooperate for their survival, and teach them to form teams bent on domination and winning. Sports has always had a role as a key distraction that corrals tribal tendencies into a non-important event, which in modern America has reached ridiculous proportions where protests will break out over a sport celebrity leaving their city, but essential human issues such as liberty are giggled away as inconsequential. Political discourse is strictly in a left-right paradigm of easily controlled opposition, while religion is the backdrop of nearly every war throughout history.

5. Food, Water, and Air – Additives, toxins, and other food poisons literally alter brain chemistry to create docility and apathy. Fluoride in drinking water has been proven to lower IQ; Aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins which excite brain cells until they die; and easy access to the fast food that contains these poisons generally has created a population that lacks focus and motivation for any type of active lifestyle.

Most of the modern world is perfectly groomed for passive receptiveness — and acceptance — of the dictatorial elite. And if you choose to diligently watch your diet, they are fully prepared to spray the population from the above.

 

 

6. Drugs – This can be any addictive substance, but the mission of mind controllers is to be sure you are addicted to something. One major arm of the modern mind control agenda is psychiatry, which aims to define all people by their disorders, as opposed to their human potential. This was foreshadowed in books such as Brave New World. Today, it has been taken to even further extremes as a medical tyranny has taken hold where nearly everyone has some sort of disorder — particularly those who question authority. The use of nerve drugs in the military has led to record numbers of suicides. Worst of all, the modern drug state now has over 25% of U.S. children on mind-numbing medication.

7. Military testing – The military has a long history as the testing ground for mind control. The military mind is perhaps the most malleable, as those who pursue life in the military generally resonate to the structures of hierarchy, control, and the need for unchallenged obedience to a mission. For the increasing number of military personal questioning their indoctrination, a recent story highlighted DARPA’s plans for transcranial mind control helmets that will keep them focused.

8. Electromagnetic spectrum – An electromagnetic soup envelops us all, charged by modern devices of convenience which have been shown to have a direct impact on brain function. In a tacit admission of what is possible, one researcher has been working with a “god helmet” to induce visions by altering the electromagnetic field of the brain. Our modern soup has us passively bathed by potentially mind-altering waves, while a wide range of possibilities such as cell phone towers is now available to the would-be mind controller for more direct intervention.

 

 

9. Television, Computer, and “flicker rate”– It’s bad enough that what is “programmed” on your TV (accessed via remote “control”) is engineered; it is all made easier by literally lulling you to sleep, making it a psycho-social weapon. Flicker rate tests show that alpha brain waves are altered, producing a type of hypnosis — which doesn’t portend well for the latest revelation that lights can transmit coded Internet data by “flickering faster than the eye can see.” The computer’s flicker rate is less, but through video games, social networks, and a basic structure which overloads the brain with information, the rapid pace of modern communication induces an ADHD state. A study of video games revealed that extended play can result in lower blood flow to the brain, sapping emotional control. Furthermore, role-playing games of lifelike war and police state scenarios serve to desensitize a connection to reality. One look at the WikiLeaks video Collateral Murder should be familiar to anyone who has seen a game like Call of Duty.

10. Nanobots – From science fiction horror, directly to the modern brain; the nanobots are on the way. Direct brain modification already has been packaged as “neuroengineering.” A Wired article from early 2009 highlighted that direct brain manipulation via fiber optics is a bit messy, but once installed “it could make someone happy with the press of a button.” Nanobots take the process to an automated level, rewiring the brain molecule by molecule. Worse, these mini droids can self-replicate, forcing one to wonder how this genie would ever get back in the bottle once unleashed. Expected date of arrival? Early 2020s.

A concerted effort is underway to manage and predict human behavior so that the social scientists and the dictatorial elite can control the masses and protect themselves from the fallout of a fully awake free humanity. Only by waking up to their attempts to put us to sleep do we stand a chance of preserving our free will.

Top 5 GMO Foods To Watch Out For.

 

 

 

by Beth Buczynski

 

As you may or may not know by now, the United States government has allowed genetically modified and engineered organisms to enter the public food supply with no warning. Every day, millions of people unknowingly ingest these GMOs because corporations like Monsanto (and the politicians they’ve bought and paid for) claim it’s unfair to require them to label their products.
Multiple scientific studies have linked GMOs to illness, disease, and mutation in plants, animals and humans. These adverse affects have been found to be especially pronounced in pregnant women and children, consequently a demographic that is more apt to eat the low price, processed foods that carry most of the world’s GMO’s.

Until such time as the state or federal government decides to finally stand up for the American consumer by passing mandatory GMO labeling laws, the only way to protect yourself from these toxic “foods” is to avoid buying and eating them.

FoodConsumer’s Marie Cendejas recently published a list of the top 10 GMO foods that you should avoid at all costs. We’ve pared down the list to five GMOs we think are especially gross or dangerous.

These are the foods that are worth the extra time it may take to research origins and the extra money it may cost to buy organic. As always, buying local is ideal, because you can contact the farmer directly to ask what kinds of seeds are used.

1. Tomatoes
Did you know tomatoes were the first genetically modified crop to be commercially available in the U.S.? (Probably not since the government didn’t tell us and they aren’t labeled). In 1994, transgenic tomatoes known as the FlavrSavrs hit the market. They contained a “deactivated” gene that was supposed to prevent the fruit from getting soft as it ripened. It didn’t work as well as biotech companies hoped. Now, experts are praising a new technique whereby two enzymes, (A-Man, B-hex) are suppressed. Unfortunately, there have been reports that some animals have died shortly after consuming GMO tomatoes. Yum.

2. Corn
This one is tough, because even foods that you wouldn’t normally associate with corn have ingredients, like sweeteners, that are derived from GMO corn. As Care2′s Jaelithe Judy reports, genetically modified corn and soybeans were developed by Monsanto in the 1990s to be resistant to the synthetic herbicide glyphosate (better known by Monsanto’s trademarked name for the weedkiller, Roundup). Now, more than 70 percent of corn produced in the United States are the genetically modified, herbicide-resistant variety. Fresh corn from Walmart should be especially avoided.

3. Papayas
In the late 1980′s biotech researchers developed a papaya cultivar that would be resistant to Papaya Ringspot Virus. To do this, certain viral genes encoding capsid proteins were transferred to the papaya genome. Now, GMO papaya make up about 75 percent of the total Hawaiian papaya crop.

4. Rice
Rice is considered to be one of the world’s staple crops. In many areas, it has been genetically modified to contain a high amount of vitamin A. More recently, it was discovered that an American company, Ventria Bioscience, has been cultivating rice that’s genetically modified (GM) with genes from the human liver. Although the company claims it’s only producing this rice to help speed pharmacuetical research, it’s growing it in open, outdoor fields. Meaning crops nearby can be unknowingly contaminated. China, which grows and consumes a huge percentage of the global rice supply, recently suspended distribution of genetically modified rice within its commercial food suppliesover growing concern about its safety.

5. Potatoes
Potatoes were once one of the world’s most important staple crops, but thanks to growing awareness about the harm of too many empty carbohydrates, demand for potatoes as food has waned slightly in the past few years. Desperate for a way to infuse potatoes with more nutrients, researchers in India created a potato with thirty-five to sixty percent more protein using genes from the amaranth seeds. The potato is still very valuable to the starch and chemical industry, however. In order to protect these starch crops from pets and disease, potatoes are sometimes genetically modified with Bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki Cry 1. Yet, mice fed GE potatoes have shown abnormal amounts of toxins in their systems. Also, according to Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff, Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University found that “rats fed the transgenic potatoes had significantly lower organ weights.”
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Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/top-5-gmo-foods-to-watch-out-for.html#ixzz202uMW500

Bipartisan Support for Romney's Business Past Should Scare Us All.

AlterNet / By Stephen Lerner

 

Stephen Lerner helped lead the fight against private equity on behalf of workers. Here, he reveals inside details from his battles.

In recent weeks there have been multiple exposés documenting how Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, both outsourced jobs and made a massive profit while bankrupting one of the companies they own.

And just a couple of weeks ago, “Sterling” was how former President Bill Clinton described the Republican nominee for president’s track record as a businessman. Clinton was just the latest in a chorus of high-profile current and former Democratic elected officials who came to the defense of Romney and private equity in the face of criticism from outside observers, and most importantly, from President Obama’s re-election campaign. Just as Romney’s record at private equity super-power Bain Capital was becoming the central focus of the national campaign narrative, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, co-chair of the DNC platform committee, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, co-chair of the Obama reelection campaign went on national television to defend the honor of Romney, Bain Capital and private equity.

In the era of the 99%, these comments were seized on by cable news hosts and reporters across the country. A “Dems defending big business and Mitt Romney” story certainly had some “man bites dog” appeal – but it struck many as downright shocking that prominent Democrats would not just “bite man,” but in fact “bite THE man,” as their comments undercut one of Obama’s key attacks and points of contrast with Romney.

While the Obama campaign – and pundits everywhere - may have been stunned by comments from these normally supportive allies, I wasn’t surprised at all. Back in 2007, while directing the Service Employees International Union’s campaign to hold the private equity industry accountable for their damage to our economy, I learned all too well how deep the relationship between current and former government officials and this little-known segment of the financial industry really runs. My experiences interacting with the titans of this industry were so eye-opening, I kept a diary of my meetings so I wouldn’t lose any of the fresh insights and disturbing details of those exchanges.

When Clinton, Booker, Patrick and others defended Bain and Romney, I was instantly transported back to a 2008 meeting I had with the Private Equity firm KKR and two of the chief operatives for the industry – former Speaker of the House and Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt and former RNC chair and George W. Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman. We had been pressing KKR to adopt a social responsibility code that protected the rights of workers in companies they purchased and owned, and as part of the campaign had released a series of videos with Brave New Films that can be found at warongreed.org. One of the videos highlighted that KKR’s Henry Kravis made $51,000 an hour and owned numerous homes, and contrasted this with the low pay of workers at Toys 'R' Us, HCA and other companies KKR co-owned with Bain Capital. Sitting in the room watching two former rivals, Mehlman and Gephardt, working together, throwing aside years of ideological and partisan differences to defend and represent KKR, was a startling example of Private Equity’s reach and influence.

The relationship between government, politicians, and private equity is a non-partisan love affair spanning nations and continents. Until Mitt Romney’s rise to the national stage, this tryst largely took place out of the sight of the public, as many elected leaders would exit government to join the boards or payrolls of some of the world’s largest PE firms. This is a conflict and confluence of interests that alone should cause alarm. But Romney and private equity titans aren’t satisfied with just influencing government. Romney’s bid for the presidency represents PE’s first attempt at a complete leveraged buyout of the White House. It’s another turn in the famous revolving door and might be the greatest unspoken danger of this election.

In a time when Wall Street misdeeds crashed the global economy and there seems to be a new scandal breaking daily about executive bonuses, insider trading, and JP Morgan’s billion dollar gambling loses, it is worth looking at the special role PE plays in the economy and how it operates. I won’t attempt to summarize the broad analysis that many people have done, including the recent New York Times article document how Bain made a profit while bankrupting a company and the Washington Post article on Bain outsourcing of jobs to other countries They are just two of the most recent articles that document how private equity has destroyed jobs and loaded companies with debt, while stripping them of assets and bankrupting them, and how PE still wrests huge riches for itself from those companies. Instead, I want to focus on a few numbers that tell the story of how the PE business model negatively influences the larger economy and jeopardizes the economic health of the nation.

A few facts about private equity from 2000 to 2010:

• $1.7 trillion was spent by Private Equity on leveraged buyouts. Private Equity companies rolled up a total of a trillion in debt making these purchases.
  
• 25 percent of the private equity capital used for these leveraged buyouts, $283 billion, came from public employee pension fund investments. While Romney and others in the PE industry have railed against public employee retirement benefits, they have used the accumulated capital of those funds to finance their purchasing spree.
  
• Six of the ten largest employers in America became owned by Private Equity firms. Some of these companies, like the private hospital chain HCA, rely on government reimbursement from Medicaid and Medicare.
  
• The companies they bought avoided $250 billion in taxes because of the deductibility of interest. They borrow 60-90% of the cash needed to finance purchases. Interest payments are treated like other expenses and are deducted from earnings, leading to a huge tax break since their business model is built on running up debt.
  
• The individual private equity partners avoided another $10 billion hiding behind the “carried interest exemption” that lets them pay a 15% tax rate, far below what most of us are taxed on income.
  
• The buyout boom and special tax breaks were key drivers in growing inequality, as they sucked huge amounts of money from firms they bought through leveraging up debt, stripping assets and using fancy financial manipulations like dividend recapitalizations (more on this trick in the future ) to add more debt and pay themselves extra bonuses.

The PE business model is based on squeezing taxpayers from two ends at the same time. On the one hand, they avoid hundreds of billions in taxes through special tax deals only available to the already-super-rich—severely limiting the resources government has to address the economic crisis and the priorities of the country. On the other hand, they feed on taxpayer dollars to finance and fund the companies they purchase and operate by buying companies like Bain’s HCA hospital chain, that receive huge Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement, and using publicly financed public pension funds for capital. While in the short run, this business model--avoiding taxes and feeding off of tax dollars--may make PE barons extraordinarily rich,it is an unsustainable model that in the long run leaves taxpayers holding the debt bag and the PE guys holding the money bags.

Despite the negative impact on the rest of us, the allure of becoming part of this global economic elite is so seductive and powerful that it draws politicians, both Democratic and Republican, to defend private equity. Politicians know that when they leave the office they can join the other former heads of state that went to work for private equity firms upon leaving government--including Clinton, Tony Blair, George H.W Bush, and John Majors. They can join former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Senator Tom Daschle, and former Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, who also went to work for PE, like government officials from around the globe.

So I wasn’t surprised when current and former politicians defended private equity. And none of us should be surprised by what Romney and the PE guys will do, if in addition to controlling six of the ten largest employers in the country, they take control of the White House. The only way to stop them is to become more financially literate and demystify how these guys really make their riches and the consequences for the rest of us. Looking more deeply at the PE business models, their tax breaks, “dividend recapitalizations”, “club deals” and all the other ways they manipulate markets and disadvantage the rest of us is critically important if we believe in addressing growing political and economic inequality, and rebalancing the economy of the country.

But more importantly, I hope that as we better understand the dangers of the private equity model, we can figure out how to stop a leveraged buyout of the White House.
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Stephen Lerner is a labor and community organizer and the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign.

It's a Safe Health-Food Wonder, Agricultural Dream and Economic Jackpot: It's Time to End our Government's Insane Hemp Prohibition.

 

 

AlterNet / ByJill Richardson

 

 

The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp, our ships had hemp sails, and pioneers' covered wagons were covered in -- what else? -- hemp.

 

David Bronner was recently arrested for attempting to eat a healthy breakfast. Does that sound stupid? Even once you know the details, it should sound stupid: Bronner's food of choice was bread spread with hemp seed oil he pressed himself from industrial hemp plants, which he did in front of the White House under a banner reading: “Dear Mr. President Let U.S. Farmers Grow Hemp."
Bronner's company, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, spends over $100,000 to buy over 20 tons of hemp seed oil from Canada each year to use in its soaps. Bronner wants to give that money to American farmers instead.

If it's legal to use in soaps – and even to eat – then why is it illegal to grow here? Because according to the government, hemp is a drug. Specifically, it's considered identical to its close cousin, marijuana. But Bronner says it is no more a drug than a poppyseed bagel. The plants he gathered seed from to press his oil in front of the White House had been tested to confirm they contained less than 0.3 percent THC, which means it would be “impossible to get a high of any kind” even from smoking extremely large quantities of it. A more likely result from smoking that much industrial hemp would be a bad headache or perhaps a sore throat.

Bronner explains that his protest was “the culmination of a lot of frustration,” saying, “We're just sick and tired of this policy. It basically hands the world's largest market for industrial hemp seed and fiber products to the Canadians, Europeans, and Chinese, who are laughing at us all the way to the bank.”

He and others have lobbied to legalize growing industrial hemp in the U.S. for more than a decade. The environmentally friendly soap company appreciates that hemp can be grown without toxic agrochemicals, but it's the high omega-3 fatty acid content that really draws him to eating it and using it in his soaps. Bronner finds that the omega-3 content of hemp seed oil “makes the soap a lot smoother and emollient and less drying.” As a food, it has the “ideal ratio” of omega-6 to omega-3, about three to one.

Over the last half century, Americans have systematically removed omega 3 fatty acids from their diets, replacing them instead with omega 6 fatty acids. Within the human body, the two essential fatty acids “compete,” making the ratio of omega-6:omega-3 more important than the absolute quantity one eats of either one on its own. The 3:1 ratio of hemp seed oil is ideal, but most Americans eat 14 to 25 times more omega-6 than omega-3, causing a range of health problems.

Bronner and other hemp advocates were hopeful that Obama, who voted in favor of hemp cultivation twice as an Illinois state senator, would follow what they call a “rational science-based approach to hemp policy.” In addition to its use as a food and as a cosmetic, the plant offers uses as a fiber to make clothing or paper. Historically, Americans grew hemp until 1957, and during World War II, the government even encouraged farmers to grow it. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp, the U.S. ships had hemp sails and the pioneers' covered wagons were covered in -- what else? -- hemp. Over the past three years, hemp advocates have aimed to introduce Americans to this part of our history by holding an annual Hemp History Week.

Bronner's protest action, which he undertook inside a specially designed cage that was difficult for the police to open or move, was held in conjunction with this year's Hemp History Week. “As silly as this action is,” he says, “It's 1/1000 as silly as this policy that's forcing us to year after year after year send our money to Canada.” This is not his first protest either – he's also been arrested for planting hemp on the lawn of the Drug Enforcement Agency headquarters in 2009.

Civil disobedience and violations of laws against industrial hemp are different from those of medical marijuana. A terminally ill patient only needs a few plants to satisfy their needs, and if they are arrested, the government often does itself a lot of harm, as the public sees the lunacy of arresting a patient getting relief from their intense pain. But a farmer requires many more plants – perhaps 10,000 plants, Bronner estimates – to commercially grow industrial hemp. The penalty for that farmer would be much stiffer than those imposed on a medical marijuana user, and to the farmer, it's just not worth the risk. He or she could simply grow a different, legal crop. “It's not a life and death thing for them, not something they are going to go to jail for,” says Bronner, explaining why he decided to protest. “So that's where I came up with this, like I'm going to put my own liberty at stake and say are you really going to put me in jail for not wanting to send my money to Canada?”

Since industrial hemp, by definition, cannot get you high, why is it still illegal? The stated reason is that someone could hide marijuana plants within a field of hemp. Bronner laughs at this, saying “The Chinese government that shoots you if you have marijuana allow tens of thousands of acres of industrial hemp, and they can tell the difference.” Technically, they execute people for trafficking, not for smoking it. Still, the point is well made. The North American Industrial Hemp Council compares the difference between the two plants to the difference between corn and roses. Industrial hemp producers space their plants four inches apart, growing them as tall as 20 feet high, whereas marijuana plants are grown six feet apart in shorter, fatter bushes.

A more likely explanation for the continued ban on growing industrial hemp is that the vested interests that stand to lose market share if it were allowed – the cotton and timber industries – hold enough power in D.C. to keep it illegal. But the tide may be changing. Sen. Wyden from Oregon recently introduced a measure to recommercialize industrial hemp, and while it did not even get a vote, he might introduce it again soon. And North Dakota already has a program in place to allow growing industrial hemp. Advocates like Bronner say Obama could simply direct the Department of Justice to respect states' rights and let North Dakota farmers go ahead and grow industrial hemp. But when Obama is asked about marijuana or hemp, he laughs it off. “Very soon,” says Bronner, “any politician that talks like that is going to get laughed at. We're not there yet, but we're almost there.”
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Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..

Genetically Modified Food Myths and Truths -- A Critical Review of the Science.

 

By Marion Nestle | Sourced from Food Politics

 

I’ve just been sent GMO Myths and Truths, a review of research on claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified (GM) foods. The authors are Michael Antoniou, Claire Robinson, and John Fagan, scholars with critical positions on GM foods.

I’ve been writing about GM foods since the mid-1990s, and am impressed by the immutability of positions on the topic. As I discuss in my book Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, the pro-GM and anti-GM advocates view the topic in quite different ways that I call for lack of better terms “science-based” versus “value-based.”

In GMO Myths and Truths, the authors attempt to cross this divide by taking a science-based, heavily referenced approach to dealing with claims for the benefits of GM foods.

On the basis of this research, they argue that a large body of scientific and other authoritative evidence demonstrates that most claims for benefits of GM foods are not true. On the contrary, they say, the evidence presented in their report indicates that GM crops:

• Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, and pose different risks from non-GM crops
• Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts
• Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety
• Do not increase yield potential
• Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it
• Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant “superweeds”, compromised soil quality, and increased disease susceptibility in crops
• Have mixed economic effects
• Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity
• Do not offer effective solutions to climate change
• Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops
• Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes – poverty, lack of access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on.

Whether or not you agree with these conclusions, the authors have put a great deal of time and effort into reviewing the evidence for the claims. This is the best-researched and most comprehensive review I’ve seen of the criticisms of GM foods.

Can the pro-GM advocates produce something equally well researched, comprehensive, and compelling? I doubt it but I’d like to see them try.

In the meantime, this report provides plenty of justification for the need to label GM foods. Consumers have the right to choose. To do that, we need to know.

Please let’s just label it.

Manic Nation: Why Americans Are Anxious, Stressed, Depressed and Fat (And What We Can Do About It).

Pacific Standard / ByMary Fischer

 

 

 

How modern American culture has outrun the biology of our brains.

 

 

Dr. Peter Whybrow is lunching at a sushi bar near his office at the University of California, Los Angeles, but his attention is on the other diners. Even while talking to their tablemates, they are constantly distracted. They text, and repeatedly glance up at the wall-mounted TV screens. Common habits, sure. But to Whybrow, director of UCLA’s Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, those jittery behaviors are prime examples of how modern American culture has outrun the biology of our brains.

A British-born endocrinologist and psychiatrist, Whybrow has been fascinated with applying behavioral neuroscience to social issues since he took over the institute in 1998. At the time, with the dot-com bubble swelling and the Internet expanding, he saw a dangerously rising tide of growing psychosocial stress and shrinking physiological balance.

“Many of the usual constraints that prevented people from doing things 24 hours a day—like distance and darkness—were falling away,” says Whybrow. Our fast new lives reminded him of the symptoms of clinical mania: excitement over acquiring new things, high productivity, fast speech—followed by sleep loss, irritability, and depression.

Whybrow believes the physiological consequences of this modern mania are dramatic, contributing to epidemic rates of obesity, anxiety, and depression. In his forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Intuitive Mind: Common Sense for the Common Good, Whybrow explores how to repair the damage. “Why is it that we’ve been railroaded down this path of continuous stimulation and can’t seem to control ourselves?” he wonders. “Why can’t we just stop?”

“The good news,” he goes on, “is that we are now beginning to understand it from the perspective of brain science.”

“The computer is electronic cocaine for many people,” says Whybrow. “Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward. With technology, novelty is the reward. You essentially become addicted to novelty.”

We can’t stop because the brain has no built-in braking system. With most natural constraints gone, all we’ve got left is our own intelligence and the internal regulatory system in the frontal cortex, the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain. This “executive brain” regulates impulse control and reasoning. But, Whybrow notes, “despite our superior intelligence, we remain driven by our ancient desires.”

The most primitive part of our brain—the medulla and cerebellum—developed millennia ago when dinner tended to run or fly away. It cradles the roots of the ancient dopamine reward pathways. When an action has a good result, like snatching food before it escapes, or finding something new, dopamine neurotransmitters release chemicals that make us feel pleasure. And the more we get, the more we want. When these reward circuits are overloaded with near-continuous spikes in dopamine, our craving for reward—be it drugs, sex, food, or incoming texts—“becomes a hunger that has no bounds,” says Whybrow.

While our brains’ reward centers are in overdrive, so are their threat-warning systems. The brain’s hard-wired fight-or-flight response, buoyed by a rush of adrenaline, evolved as a response to acute emergencies, like fending off a charging lion. Since the primitive “reptilian” brain can’t distinguish between a real or potential threat, it responds to any psychosocial challenge, be it rush-hour traffic, overdue mortgage payments, or repeated deadlines, by triggering some measure of the fight/flight response. “In the past, you either fought and won or you died, but either way the stress disappeared,” explains Whybrow. “Now the alarm bells go off much of the time as we encounter one prolonged threat.”

When the “threat” is ongoing, stress disrupts the communication network between the brain and immune system and accelerates the production of molecules called cytokines, the overproduction of which can result in inflammation and disease. Prolonged stress also prompts the brain’s hypothalamus region to release cortisol, a hormone that raises blood sugar and blood pressure.

“When the stress response is continuously in play,” explains Whybrow, “it causes us to become aggressive, hypervigilant, overreactive.

Small wonder then that, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety is now the nation’s most common psychiatric complaint, affecting some 40 million people. And the connection between mental stress and obesity has been well documented.

So how does Whybrow himself cope, given the demands of running a huge institution with 400 faculty, a fast-approaching book deadline, and constant speaking engagements?

In his office, during an hour-long interview, there was not a single interruption. No email or text pings. No ringing phones. His computer was closed. His cell phone was turned off, as it usually is. He sometimes works until 9 at night, but he doesn’t work at home. On weekends, he checks his email just once a day.

“The idea is not that you don’t work hard,” Whybrow explains. “You do. But you have to be able to switch it off and create space. I’ve made a conscious decision to live a life that is not driven by someone else’s priority.” No matter how good that dopamine feels.