Recently in Environment Category

CTV.ca News Staff

May 27, 2009

A Columbia University professor is warning the public about the negative health effects of man-made electromagnetic fields, which come out of cellphones and power lines.

Dr. Martin Blank, a professor with the school's Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, compared the EMF waves to the ripples caused by dropping a pebble into a quiescent pond.

"The water doesn't move, it just carries the energy further and further out," Blank told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday.

"It's the same thing about these waves. These waves are generated in all kinds of charges that are present anywhere.

"When you get an electromagnetic field that's coming out of a power line, or it's coming out of a cellphone antenna or a cellphone tower it's going to do things to the molecules in our body."

Blank says EMFs in the environment may lead to brain tumours, Alzheimer's disease, dementia and breast cancer.

Autism Alternative
May 13, 2009

In the light of the recent public scare of the Swine fly pandemic, we desided to post the letter from Dr. Andreas Motitz with the permission of it's owner.

By Andreas Moritz

May 5, 2009

Dear Friend,

In the past few weeks I have received hundreds of inquiries about the recent outbreak of swine flu. My views on the subject may be controversial to some of you, but they may not come as a surprise to those who have read my books.

I do not pretend to know everything about the subject at hand, but I have studied the reasons behind flu outbreaks for many years, and have arrived at some startling conclusions. I would like to share these with you in this piece.

To answer one question many have posed, the Mexican toddler who visited Texas and died there actually suffered from a pre-existing respiratorypandemics2 condition (who knows when he received his vaccine shots, which kill many children). Or did he live in Mexico City? Mexico City has a high concentration of people (over 20 million), poverty, lousy sanitation and substandard health care, and the stagnant air pollution that overhangs the city is one of the worst in world. Nearly every person living in Mexico City has a weak respiratory system. I know firsthand what air pollution can do to you. In 1983, I spent one year in New Delhi (India), and suffered from upper respiratory problems the entire year. You never stop coughing up dark phlegm, day and night, when living in that kind of unhealthy environment. My lungs were filled with black soot produced at a rate of 2,000 tons per day by coal-burning electricity generators.

Farm Wars
By Barbara H. Peterson
May 18, 2008

Monsanto and its cohorts in crime promised us that they would not be using Terminator technology called GURT, or genetic use restricted technology. In fact, the United Nations actually issued a moratorium on the project. So we’re safe, right? Wrong.

As usual, the boys in the little white lab coats have not been idle. In spite of the moratorium, not only are they working heatedly on Terminator technology, but are getting ready to introduce Zombie technology. Terminator, and Traitor or Zombie technologies are just variations of GURT. Whereas Terminator technology produces plants with sterile seeds, Zombie technology carries this a step further by creating plants that could require a chemical application to trigger seed fertility every year. Pay for the chemical or get sterile seed. This is called reversible transgenic sterility. They have been working steadily on perfecting this technology, and are now poised to introduce it to the world as a solution to the current GMO contamination problem. Move over Terminator, here comes the Zombie.

Sott.net
Jeff Donn, Marths Mendoza & Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
April 19, 2009

In this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment Plant in Wilmington, Del. Scientists took samples from the Delaware River nearby and found elevated concentrations of the painkiller codeine that are prompting them to try and track the source of the drug; this treatment plant handles sewage from a nearby pharmaceutical factory that makes codeine

SPIEGEL ONLINE
04/14/2009
MONSANTO UPROOTED

Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed.

The sowing season may be just around the corner, but this year German farmers will not be planting gentically modified crops: German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday she was banning the cultivation of GM corn in Germany.

Greenpeace activists take a sample from a Monsanto test site near Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia: The GM crop MON 810 has been banned in Germany.

Xenophilia
Posted by Xeno on April 15, 2009

Someone searching this blog for information on chemtrails was disappointed to find nothing, so here is a long video by chemtrail researcher Clifford Carnicom who claims that since the early part of 1999, substances have been sprayed in the atmosphere.

OpEdNews
April 7, 2009
By Marti Oakley

Looming in our Congress are several bills dedicated to the creation of a yet another bureaucracy which will be used to facilitate the usurping of US laws, standards and regulations in deference to international agreements and global committee edicts.

At stake here is what has been the most dynamic and productive agricultural system ever known….and the most safe. Our congress has decided that preserving this system and allowing it to continue is not beneficial to corporate AG nor to the continued compliance relating to non-US laws and regulations.

Digital Journal
April 2, 2009

South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds.The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered compensation.

Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces,on alleged 'underfertilisation processes in the laboratory". Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn problems.

Urgent investigation demanded

However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto's genetically-manipulated technology.

Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in three provinces - North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers' cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that 'less than 25%' of three different corn varieties were 'insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory'.

Alternet
Dara Colwell
March 27, 2009

While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.

But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.

"We're in the midst of a dark economic transition, but I believe hemp is an important facet and has tremendous economic potential," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial hemp-farming advocacy group. "Economically and environmentally, industrial hemp is an important part of the sustainability pie."

With 25,000 known applications from paper, clothing and food products -- which, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal this January, is the fastest growing new food category in North America -- to construction and automotive materials, hemp could be just the crop to jump-start America's green economy.

CommonDreams.org
Published on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by St Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
by Jeffrey Tomich

Earlier this month, a blogger named Brad fired a virtual salvo at Jeffrey Smith, the author of "Seeds of Deception" and one of the most vocal crusaders against genetically modified foods.

In a 600-word post, Brad questioned the credibility of an online petition on Smith's website, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to require labeling of biotech foods. He called the petition "sheer political theater" and prodded the activist for purportedly being a yogic flying instructor.

More than 30 comments followed in the next few weeks. On one level, the exchange was just another online debate about GMOs. But this one was notable because of who initiated and hosted it: Monsanto Co.

For years, environmental and food activists have made good use of YouTube video and Facebook to skewer Monsanto in the blogosphere. Now, the biotech giant is turning the tables.

Crimes against humanity and nature have been committed and hidden on the back pages of newspapers around the world. The Monsanto Corporation, with the help of corporation-friendly judiciaries around the world, has been systematically aiming for complete agricultural hegemony through abusive litigation, aggressive lobbying and questionable patent law interpretation.

In case you don't know who Monsanto is, they were founded in 1901 and helped introduce caffeine into Coca-Cola. Not too bad for the average college student, but their major spring board into becoming one of the top 10 chemical producers in the United States was the manufacture of DDT, which was a major cause in endangering the bald eagle, and Agent Orange, which was used in Vietnam and whose effects on both American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians are so notorious.

Monsanto is listed as being a "potentially responsible party" for 56 EPA "Superfund" sites, where there is a high risk of danger to human life due to toxic waste contamination, and that's just in the United States alone.

Globe and Mail
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
March 4, 2009

Controversial chemical found in at least 84% of canned pop sold in Canada

The estrogen-mimicking chemical BPA, already banished from baby bottles and frowned upon in water jugs, has now shown up in significant levels in soft drinks.

Tests by Health Canada scientists revealed the highest levels were in energy drinks, the often caffeine-loaded beverages that have become popular with teenagers seeking a buzz and athletes chasing a quick pick-me-up. But the study also found the controversial compound in a wide variety of ginger ales, diet colas, root beers and citrus-flavoured sodas.

Bisphenol A was detected in 96 per cent of soft drinks tested, in quantities below regulatory limits. But a growing body of science suggests the chemical may have harmful effects at levels far below those limits.

Health Canada did not disclose the brand names of the beverages it evaluated, but estimated that the survey covered at least 84 per cent of canned soft drinks sold in Canada.

There's a popular medical thriller novel in which a global pandemic is intentionally set off by an evil plot designed to reduce the human population. In the book, a nefarious drug company inserts live avian flu viruses into vaccine materials that are distributed to countries around the world to be injected into patients as "flu shots." Those patients then become carriers for these highly-virulent strains of avian flu which go on to infect the world population and cause widespread death.

There's only one problem with this story: It's not fiction. Or, at least, the part about live avian flu viruses being inserted into vaccine materials isn't fiction. It's happening right now.

Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?

Treehugger.com
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York
on February 27, 2009
Business & Politics

Photo via SF Gate

Sott.net
OpEd News
Linn Cohen-Cole
February 16, 2009

[Editors' note: Community-Supported Agriculture or C.S.A., is the distribution system in which people buy shares in return for a weekly allotment of local fresh farm food.]

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton. She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food. Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

People say if farmers don't want problems from Monsanto, just don't buy their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It's a way to make money since farmers can't fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.

Sott.net
Dan Eskelsom
Garden Journal
February 3, 2009

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have become a hot topic among farmers, environmentalists, gardeners and others concerned with food and environmental safety. Some folks believe that GMO technology is "the single most potent technology the world has ever known" and capable of causing incurable damage to our species' well being.

Here is a very simple explanation of the issue: Monsanto, the producer of the infamous chemicals Agent Orange and PCB, has developed a biotechnology that alters the genetic makeup of seeds. The original and ongoing intent of the technology is to allow mass spraying of herbicide over entire fields without hurting the crop.

Seeds are altered to produce plants that are not affected by herbicide, so farmers can broadcast spray huge amounts of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide without affecting the food crop. Did I say not affecting? That is what Monsanto would have you believe, but common sense and the evidence indicates otherwise.

Sott.net
Alison Benjamin
The Guardian
January 29, 2009

First UK supermarket chain - and Britain's biggest farmer - to prohibit chemicals implicated in the death of over one-third of British bees

The Co-op today became the first UK supermarket to ban the use of a group of pesticides implicated in billions of honeybee deaths worldwide.

It is prohibiting suppliers of its own-brand fresh produce from using eight pesticides that have been connected to honeybee colony collapse disorder and are already restricted in some parts of Europe.

The Co-op said it will eliminate the usage of the neonicotinoid family of chemicals where possible and until they are shown to be safe. The Co-op has over 70,000 acres of land under cultivation in England and Scotland, making it the largest farmer in the UK. Since 2001, it has already prohibited the use of 98 pesticides under its pesticide policy.

Simon Press, senior technical manager at the Co-op group said: "We believe that the recent losses in bee populations need definitive action, and as a result are temporarily prohibiting the eight neonicotinoid pesticides until we have evidence that refutes their involvement in the decline."

The Liberty Voice
Greenpeace
January 13, 2009

India — New research from Austria shows that a commercial strain of Monsanto-made GE corn causes mice to have fewer and weaker babies. What is this doing to human fertility?

Regulators around the world said Monsanto’s GE corn was as safe as non-GE strains.

It has been approved in many countries and regions including the US, the EU, Argentina, Japan, Philippines and South Africa.

China approved the GE corn for animal feed back in 2005.

Until this research, under the Austrian Ministries for Agriculture and Health, none of the regulators had seriously questioned the safety of Monsanto’s GE corn.

The biotech industry is playing a game of genetic roulette with our food and with our health.

Rob Edwards
New Scientist
January 12, 2009

The health of millions could be at risk because medicinal plants used to make traditional remedies, including drugs to combat cancer and malaria, are being overexploited. "The loss of medicinal plant diversity is a quiet disaster," says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Most people worldwide, including 80 per cent of all Africans, rely on herbal medicines obtained mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of extinction, according to a report this week from international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.

Commercial over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution, competition from invasive species and habitat destruction all contribute. "Commercial collectors generally harvest medicinal plants with little care for sustainability," the Plantlife report says. "This can be partly through ignorance, but [happens] mainly because such collection is unorganised and competitive."

Posted by Xeno on January 9, 2009

First the frogs started disappearing. Then the bees started disappearing. Now, according to the Seattle Times, its birds:

Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.

Frogs and bees are so different from people that they are easier to ignore. But birds are larger, more complicated, warm-blooded animals, and thus closer to us biologically.

NewsWithViews.com
By NWV News Director, Jim Kouri
December 22, 2008

While most Americans were bombarded with news coverage regarding the presidential race without end, President George W. Bush almost silently signed a senate bill that would change America forever.

S.1858 allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the United States. According to the legislation, the new law must be implemented within 6 months of Bush's bill signing in April 2008.

According to police experts, this infant DNA collection is now being carried out by individual states and sample DNA is being submitted to the feds. Congressman Ron Paul states that this bill is the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database.

The rational for the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007 is that it represents preparation for any kind of natural or man-made emergency or disaster. The bill states that the federal government should "continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening" and "maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening... ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly." Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in laboratory experiments and tests.

Image by hebam3000 via Flickr

NaturalNews
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
December 19, 2008

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted GRAS approval for a natural, zero-calorie sweetener it once sought to wipe out from the U.S. marketplace. Following political pressure from powerful consumer product corporations (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, primarily), the FDA has once again fallen in step with the interests of Big Business and legalized a food and beverage ingredient that it once aggressively oppressed.

In this case, however, the approval of this ingredient happens to be in the best interests of consumers. Why? Because it will largely replace aspartame, an artificial sweetener chemical linked to numerous neurological disorders, including headaches, eye disorders and other problems.

It will also unleash a wave of stevia-sweetened products for consumers, and that's good news for diabetics or anyone seeking healthier products sweetened with an herbal extract rather than a synthetic chemical.

I publicly predicted this FDA decision just two weeks ago an article containing thirty-one predictions for 2009 (http://www.naturalnews.com/024976.html). The FDA's approval of stevia is prediction #8, for those keeping track. (Interestingly, at least two of the top 13 predictions for 2009 have already come true in the last month of 2008!)

Natural News
Mike Adams
December 18, 2008

In a truly astonishing betrayal of public safety (even for the FDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today revoked its warning about mercury in fish, saying that eating mercury-contaminated fish no longer poses any health threat to children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants.

Last week, the FDA declared trace levels of melamine to be safe in infant formula. A few weeks earlier, it said the plastics chemical Bisphenol-A was safe for infants to drink. Now it says children can eat mercury, too. Is there any toxic substance in the food that the FDA thinks might be dangerous? (Aspartame, MSG, sodium nitrite and now mercury...)

This FDA decision on mercury in fish has alarmed EPA scientists who called it "scientifically flawed and inadequate," reports the Washington Post. Even better, the Environmental Working Group issued a letter to the EPA, saying "It's a commentary on how low FDA has sunk as an agency. It was once a fierce protector of America's health, and now it's nothing more than a patsy for polluters."

Telegraph.co.uk
Urmee Khan
December 9, 2008

Men are at risk of being "feminised" by thousands of "gender bending" chemicals that are changing the behaviour of humans and animals, according to a report.

Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen.

The males of species including fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles have been feminised by exposure to sex hormone disrupting chemicals and have been found to be abnormally making egg yolk protein, normally made by females, according to the report by Chem Trust, environmental group.

The authors claim that the chemicals found in food packaging, cleaning products, plastics, sewage and paint cause genital deformities, reduce sperm count and "feminise" males.

www.opednews.com

November 16, 2008

by Institute for Responsible Technology (Posted by sadelaine)

Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety

Advocates Call for Immediate Ban of All GM Foods and GM Crops

IMMEDIATE RELEASE (November 13, 2008)

(Los Angeles, CA.) - A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.

Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.

November 10th, 2008

By David Gutierrez | A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

"The abuse has reached epidemic proportions," said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. "It's just explosive."

In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121, methamphetamines for 25 and marijuana for zero, for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast, 2,328 people were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin, and 743 were killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants Valium and Xanax.

www.opednews.com
November 5, 2008
by DrTruth

Big business greed, selfishness, power lust, and total disregard for human life and all life in the natural world continues on with its diabolical schemes to control all food production in the world. Monsanto's attempts to patent pig genes, and subsequently, many other life forms through genetically modified organisms (GMO) is as criminal as they come.

It is bad enough that Monsanto's total vanity and ego could believe they own any aspect of the natural world, regardless of what they might do to it, for them to do this for money and control is insult to injury. This is a purely evil agenda and they are a clear example of domestic terrorists at work to subjugate others.

Imagine this: You have a field of corn you are raising cleanly... without GMO corn seed. Your neighboring fields have those GMO seeds and crops. The pollen from those fields cross with your clean corn plants, carrying the genetic material Monsanto's perverted corn contains. Now, your corn crop can be claimed as their property because of their patented gene found in your crop and they can either demand a fee from you for having this gene, or put you out of business with a lawsuit.

UNCENSORED 8 PAGE SPECIAL EDITION.pdf

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
September 18, 2008

On April 26, 2008, the BBC Alabama arrived in Longview, Wash., carrying 6,700 tons of Kuwaiti sand. The sand had become contaminated with depleted uranium when U.S. military vehicles and munitions caught fire at Doha Army base in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. The depleted uranium was being repatriated. The sand was a gift of the Kuwaiti government.

So was the cost of repatriation. Neither government will discuss just how much the tab was.

The Longview Daily News reported that Mike Wilcox, vice president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Local 21, initially had been "concerned about the safety of longshoremen and the entire community when he heard a shipment of depleted uranium was coming into Longview."

But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that the sand contained "unimportant quantities" of radioactive material, and officials from the Department of Health would be available to test radiation levels -- just in case any of the sand spilled.

At the last minute, the Army notified port authorities that tests had revealed that the sand was also contaminated with lead -- in fact, four times more lead than the EPA's limit for hazardous materials. Transshipment was delayed for a few days awaiting a green light from the EPA.

Image via Wikipedia

The Washington Post
Lyndsey Layton
September 17, 2008

The first large study in humans of a chemical widely used in everyday plastics has found that people with higher levels of bisphenol A had higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and liver abnormalities, a finding that immediately became the focus of the increasingly heated debate over the safety of the chemical.

The research, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association by a team of British and American scientists, compared the health status of 1,455 men and women with the levels of the chemical, known as BPA, in their urine.

The researchers divided the subjects into four statistical groupings according to their BPA levels and found that those in the quartile with the highest concentrations were nearly three times as likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the lowest levels, and 2.4 times as likely to have diabetes. Higher BPA levels were also associated with abnormal concentrations of three liver enzymes.

Image via Wikipedia

By Elaine Shannon, AlterNet

September 15, 2008

The chemical industry has spent years trying to suppress information about a certain chemical. Will Congress help the public know the true dangers?

It takes a lot of nerve to go up against the $3 trillion-a-year global chemical industry.

Ask University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons. They've been in the industry's crosshairs for more than a decade, since their experiments turned up the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of bisphenol A (BPA), an artificial sex hormone and integral component of a vast array of plastic products, caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice.

Their findings touched off a steady drumbeat that has led to a ban on BPA-laden baby bottles in Canada, mounting support for a similar ban in the U.S., major retailers pulling plastic products off their shelves, a consumer run on glass baby bottles and a blizzard of scientific reports raising increasingly disturbing questions about the chemical's dangers at the trace levels to which people are routinely exposed.

Image via Wikipedia

Sott.net
Antifascist Calling
September 6, 2008

If incorporating personal details into an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip implanted into a passport or driver's license may sound like a "smart" alternative to endless lines at the airport and intrusive questioning by securocrats, think again.

Since the late 1990s, corporate grifters have touted the "benefits" of the devilish transmitters as a "convenient" and "cheap" way to tag individual commodities, one that would "revolutionize" inventory management and theft prevention. Indeed, everything from paper towels to shoes, pets to underwear have been "tagged" with the chips. "Savings" would be "passed on" to the consumer. Call it the Wal-Martization of everyday life.

Image via Wikipedia

Keith Howe
OpEdNews
September 2, 2008

"Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant. Runge used the terrifying example of a terrorist flying over Providence with an aerosolized sprayer releasing air-borne anthrax over the metropolitan area." (1)

I don't recall any terrorist's flying over America with an aerosolized sprayer releasing airborne weapons of mass destruction on her citizens. I am aware, however, of the U.S. government spraying weapons of mass destruction on us, in the form of toxic nerve agents (malathion, pyrenone 5,25, Checkmate OLR-F, Checkmate LBAM-F) with the excuse of protecting us from non-threatening fruit flies, light brown apple moths, and mosquitoes allegedly carrying the West Nile Virus (which is almost no threat to humans).

Image via Wikipedia

opednews.com

July 23, 2008
by Linn Cohen-Cole

Where does one even begin?

Do you know who Monsanto is? They are a chemical corporation which made Agent Orange and after that, PCBs, with which they drowned the town of Anniston, Alabama for decades, even after knowing for sure that PCBs were highly carcinogenic. They make organophosphates, including glyphosate (Round-up) - which are highly neuro-toxic.

With this background in illness and killing, Monsanto then began "doing" your food. It genetically engineers food.

But before you say "Oh, that's good because genetic engineering is making food better, adding vitamins, growing bigger crops, ..." I have bad news for you. Please go to http://www.responsibletechnology.org and listen to Jeffrey Smith's lecture on how genetic engineering works and what it does to organs.

And as the greater yield PR, I suggest you read: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IBTCF.php about the Bt-cotton fraud in India while Monsanto claims to have increased yield by 160%. http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/news.asp?newsId=nr20070917&yr=2007 What do Indian farmers say? Indian farmers call Monsanto's Bt-cotton seeds, the Seeds of Death. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/indiacotton012406.cfm

Beyond India, there are also problems. http://www.slogefree.org/news07/a-disaster-in-search-of-success-bt-cotton-in

OpEdNews
June 29, 2008
By Sally Stride

On June 19, 2008 the American Dental Association updated its website reporting that fluoride is a concern to all kidney patients, not just those on dialysis.

Along with false assurances of safety, fluoride chemicals are added to some public and bottled water in the unscientific belief it reduces cavities.

Fluoride-induced bone damage could occur in kidney patients who consume even "optimally" fluoridated water because malfunctioning kidneys do not properly sift fluoride from the blood and out of the body. Fluoride can build up in bones making them brittle and fracture

For this reason, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) withdrew its fluoridation endorsement in October 2007, which they made public in a fluoride paper dated April 15, 2008 with advice that “individuals with CKD [Chronic Kidney Disease] should be notified of the potential risk of fluoride exposure.”

After the 2006 National Research Council's (NRC) fluoride toxicology report was brought to their attention, the NKF withdrew its fluoridation endorsement.

2 Billion may suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020: Study

ANI/Business Wire India

NEW DELHI: The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost one-third of world population (about two billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy.

According to the reports the tissues of children are tender and are likely to be more effected by use of any wireless gadget and devices and they should not be encouraged to use mobile phone.

Sott.net
Walter E. Williams
Townhall.com
June 18, 2008

It's been at least five years since I've flown commercial, and for good reason: I don't wish to be arrested for questioning actions by often arrogant, rude Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers. Two years ago, my decision was reinforced by my daughter's experience when going through airport security with her two lovebirds. Having shown her ticket and ID to security personnel, and walking toward the metal detector, they started shouting to her, "Miss, you're going to have to take them birds out of the cage." I watched with incredulity as she approached the metal detectors. Fortunately, a TSA worker took the cages and my daughter followed without further incident. Had it been I traveling with the birds, I might have told the TSA workers something that would have gotten me arrested.

Alternet
By Christopher Weber, ColorLines
June 12, 2008

Pesticides aren't just an agricultural issue. They are being used in cities too, with toxic results for residents.

Among scientists, pesticides were long regarded as an agricultural issue. They studied the impact of these chemicals on crops, rural residents, and farmworkers -- while by and large failing to examine their equally toxic effects in cities.

That is, until now. As scientists refocus on pesticides in urban areas, they're discovering that the effects of these poisons are particularly marked in communities of color. While this may be news to scientific researchers, it is no surprise for activists, who for years have been laboring to raise awareness of the swath of allergy, illness, and risk created by pesticides.

The secretive nature of pest control, the slow progress of science, and the persistent nature of some pesticides suggest this fight will last for years, perhaps generations. Meanwhile, people cough, grow sick, and don't know why.

"One of the biggest misconceptions," said Barry Zucker, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, "is that people think it's safe. People think that if [a pesticide] is approved by the EPA, it's safe."

But, he added, "There's a federal law prohibiting pesticide manufacturers from making any claims of 'safety' regarding pesticides, even if they're used as directed."

As Zucker suggests, many pesticides are far from safe. They have been linked with several types of cancer, neurological damage, autism, ADHD, and asthma.

There is evidence that people of color are disproportionately exposed to pesticides.

ScienceDaily
June 3, 2008

Electron microscope image of budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. UC Berkeley researchers insert variants of human enzymes into yeast to see if these enzymes can be tuned up with vitamins. (Credit: UC Berkeley)

ScienceDaily (Jun. 3, 2008) — As the cost of sequencing a single human genome drops rapidly, with one company predicting a price of $100 per person in five years, soon the only reason not to look at your "personal genome" will be fear of what bad news lies in your genes.

University of California, Berkeley, scientists, however, have found a welcome reason to delve into your genetic heritage: to find the slight genetic flaws that can be fixed with remedies as simple as vitamin or mineral supplements.

"I'm looking for the good news in the human genome," said Jasper Rine, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology.

"Headlines for the last 20 years have really been about the triumph of biomedical research in finding disease genes, which is biologically interesting, genetically important and frightening to people who get this information," Rine said. "I became obsessed with trying to decide if there is some other class of information that will make people want to look at their genome sequence."

What Rine and colleagues found and report in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is that there are many genetic differences that make people's enzymes less efficient than normal, and that simple supplementation with vitamins can often restore some of these deficient enzymes to full working order.

The Guardian/UK
May 24, 2008
by Alison Benjamin

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.

Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC’s Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. “It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe,” he said.

thedailygreen
May 21, 2008

The USDA Is Eliminating a Program That Many Groups Rely on to Track Pesticide Use and Safety — but Why?

Every year the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts research on pesticide use and risk associated with various crops, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat, and the body then releases its data files. That data is used by chemical groups, trade groups, public interest groups and government agencies to track pesticide use and safety, and several advocates say it is the only reliable, publicly searchable database of its kind.

In 2007, however, the USDA scaled back its data collection, and only gathered information on cotton, apples and organic apples. Now, the USDA has announced it will completely eliminate the program in 2008, due to budget cuts, and won't be collecting any data.

Sott.net
pr-inside.com
May 19, 2008

There is clear evidence that small amounts of fluoride, at or near levels added to U.S. water supplies, present potential risks to the thyroid gland, according to the National Research Council's (NRC) first-ever published review of the fluoride/thyroid literature.(A)

Fluoride, in the form of silicofluorides, injected into 2/3 of U.S. public water supplies, ostensibly to reduce tooth decay, was never safety-tested.(B)

Comment: For an in-depth look at fluoride, see Flourine Compounds Make You Stupid.

"Many Americans are exposed to fluoride in the ranges associated with thyroid effects, especially for people with iodine deficiency," says Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, co-author of the government-sponsored NRC report. "The recent decline in iodine intake in the U.S could contribute to increased toxicity of fluoride for some individuals," says Thiessen.

"A low level of thyroid hormone can increase the risk of cardiac disease, high cholesterol, depression and, in pregnant woman, decreased intelligence of offspring," said Thiessen.(C)

Common thyroid symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, constipation, fuzzy thinking, low blood pressure, fluid retention, depression, body pain, slow reflexes, and more. It's estimated that 59 million Americans have thyroid conditions.(D)

Robert Carton, PhD, an environmental scientist who worked for over 30 years for the U.S. government including managing risk assessments on high priority toxic chemicals, says "fluoride has detrimental effects on the thyroid gland of healthy males at 3.5 mg a day. With iodine deficiency, the effect level drops to 0.7 milligrams/day for an average male."(E) (1.0 mg/L fluoride is in most water supplies).

Common Dreams News Center
May 13, 2008
The Washington Post
by Rick Weiss

A handful of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology companies are seeking hundreds of patents on gene-altered crops designed to withstand drought and other environmental stresses, part of a race for dominance in the potentially lucrative market for crops that can handle global warming, according to a report being released today.

Three companies — BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis — have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide, according to the report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, an activist organization that advocates for subsistence farmers.

The applications say that the new “climate ready” genes will help crops survive drought, flooding, saltwater incursions, high temperatures and increased ultraviolet radiation — all of which are predicted to undermine food security in coming decades.

Company officials dismissed the report’s contention that the applications amount to an intellectual-property “grab,” countering that gene-altered plants will be crucial to solving world hunger but will never be developed without patent protections.

Sott.net
Jo Hartley
Natural News
May 10, 2008

Environmental and farm worker groups have now sued the Bush administration for allowing the continued use of four pesticides. They claim that the government brushed aside its own evidence that the chemicals are toxic to workers, children, and animals.

The suit challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's 2006 decision to reauthorize the four pesticides used on fruit and vegetable fields in California.

A 1996 federal law required the EPA to reassess the safety of all pesticides used on foods. Based on this reassessment, the EPA was to decide whether to approve their use. The EPA found that four substances posed substantial risks to human health but they concluded that the cost savings to growers outweighed the dangers to humans.

These four pesticides reportedly put thousands of farm workers and their families at risk of serious illness.

EPA spokesman Tim Lyons stated that the agency would review the lawsuit and respond in court. However, they did say: "Our mission is to protect the environment and human health."

Spiegel online
May 9, 2008
By Andrew Curry

Bees in the German state of Baden-Württemburg are dying by the hundreds of thousands. In some places more than half of hives have perished. Government officials say the causes are unclear -- but beekeepers are blaming new pesticides.

In Germany's bucolic Baden-Württemburg region, there is a curious silence this week. All up and down the Rhine river, farm fields usually buzzing with bees are quiet. Beginning late last week, helpless beekeepers could only watch as their hives were hit by an unprecedented die-off. Many say one of Germany's biggest chemical companies is to blame.

In some parts of the region, hundreds of bees per hive have been dying each day. "It's an absolute bee emergency," Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeeper's Association, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Fifty to 60 percent of the bees have died on average, and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Sott.net
JR Raphael
Geeks Are Sexy
May 5, 2008

It connects you to the world, but your cell phone could also be giving anyone from your boss to your wife a window into your every move. The same technology that lets you stay in touch on-the-go can now let others tap into your private world - without you ever even suspecting something is awry.

The new generation

Long gone are the days of simple wiretapping, when the worst your phone could do was let someone listen in to your conversations. The new generation of cell phone spying tools provides a lot more power.

Eavesdropping is easy. All it takes is a two-minute software install and someone can record your calls and monitor your text messages. They can even set up systems to be automatically alerted when you dial a certain number, then instantly patched into your conversation. Anyone who can perform a basic internet search can find the tools and figure out how to do it in no time.

But the scarier stuff is what your phone can do when you aren't even using it. Let's start with your location.

Sott.net
WorldNetDaily
May 5, 2008

Safety debate over public water treatments heats up with release of shocking new studies

Water treatment plant ©WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON - From Pennsylvania to Nebraska and from Europe to New Zealand, there is growing and fierce opposition to plans to fluoridate public drinking water, fueled by a battery of shocking new studies that seriously question a practice routine among U.S. municipalities for nearly the last 50 years.

• In Clearfield, Pa., the municipal authority asked the state Department of Environmental Protection for permission to stop adding fluoride to its water. But before city officials got an answer, they got a lawsuit threat from the Pennsylvania Dental Association, which promised not only an injunction against any plans to stop adding the chemical to drinking supplies but litigation against the individual board members who approved the action. The city backed down and continues to fluoridate water.

Sott.net

Hope Shand
gristmill
May 2, 2008

A review of Claire Hope Cummings' Uncertain Peril

In October 1996, a spokesman for Monsanto told Farm Journal why his company was buying up seed companies left and right: "What you're seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it's really a consolidation of the entire food chain."

Today, Monsanto is the world's largest seed company -- and makes more money selling seeds than chemicals. The company's biotech seeds and traits accounted for 88 percent of the worldwide area devoted to genetically modified seeds in 2006 -- and Monsanto earns royalties on every single one. No one needed to tell Monsanto: Whoever controls the first link in the food chain -- the seeds -- controls the food supply.

From The Times
May 3, 2008
Alexandra Frean, Education Editor

Targets for “toddler technology” skills laid down by the Government, which will require children to master basic computer skills by the age of 4 and understand how to use a television remote control, pose serious risks to child development, experts have said.

Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled, said that the Government’s new early years curriculum, which requires underfives to be taught on computers, risked creating a generation of screen addicts.

Exposure to screen technology during key stages of child development may have counter-productive effects on cognitive processes and learning, particularly language development and competency in reading and maths, Dr Sigman said.

“Legally requiring the introduction of screen technology to 20 to 60-month-old children is likely to lead to even higher levels of daily screen viewing. Early introduction to ICT [information and communications technology] is likely to lead to a greater lifetime dependency on screens,” he said.

DW-World.de
April 18, 2008

Not even the home will be safe from surveillance

Changes proposed to the law governing Germany's federal criminal police operations would allow investigators to use wire taps and surveillance cameras in homes of innocent citizens to keep tabs on terror suspects.

SOTT.net
Jaikumar Vijayan
ComputerWorld
April 22, 2008

In a ruling that's likely to come as a disappointment for privacy-rights advocates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week held that Customs officers need no reasonable suspicion to search through the contents of any individual's laptop computer at the country's borders.

The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which had granted a motion seeking to suppress evidence gathered from such a search in a case involving child pornography. In arriving at that decision, the District Court ruled that Customs officers indeed did need to have reasonable or particularized suspicion for searching through laptop computers at U.S. borders.

The case involves a man named Michael Arnold, who was arrested in 2005 on charges of transporting child pornography on his laptop computer. According to a description of the case in court records, Arnold was returning home from a three-week vacation in the Philippines in July 2005, when he was pulled aside for secondary Customs screening at Los Angeles International Airport.

A Customs officer who was inspecting Arnold's luggage asked him to start his computer and had it examined by colleagues who found several images of what they believed were child pornography on the computer and in several storage devices that Arnold was carrying with him.

Common Dreams
April 20, 2008 by The Independent/UK
By Geoffrey Lean

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university’s department of agronomy, said he started the research - reported in the journal Better Crops - because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had “noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions”. He added: “People were asking the question ‘how come I don’t get as high a yield as I used to?’”

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

CNews.ru: Top Headlines
April 18, 2008

Handsets pose danger for children and teen-agers, state experts of the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection having carried out experiments with animals of different age. The oncoming generation is recommended to reduce communication through handsets, as their nerves might be badly injured.

The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) has expressed its opinion regarding the possible influence of handset electromagnetic field on children and teen-ages. The experiments, consultations and discussions held led to the resolution ‘Children and handsets: future generations’ health is under threat’. The given resolution comprises opinions of leading Russian scientists in hygiene and radiobiology of Non-Ionizing Radiation. The given resolution is based on modern scientific knowledge and fundamental submission generated in many years of research into the influence of electromagnetic fields on human health.

washingtonpost.com
By Nita Farahany
April 13, 2008

Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A world in which a suspect who lies under questioning gets nabbed immediately because his brain has given him away.

Though that may sound a lot like the plot of the 2002 movie "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise and based on a Philip K. Dick novel, I'm not talking about science fiction here; it turns out we're not so far away from that world. But does it sound like a very safe place, or a very scary one?

It's a question I think we should be asking as the federal government invests millions of dollars in emerging technology aimed at detecting and decoding brain activity. And though government funding focuses on military uses for these new gizmos, they can and do end up in the hands of civilian law enforcement and in commercial applications. As spending continues and neurotechnology advances, that imagined world is no longer the stuff of science fiction or futuristic movies, and we postpone at our peril confronting the ethical and legal dilemmas it poses for a society that values not just personal safety but civil liberty as well.

NewsWithViews.com
by Beverly Eakman
April 8, 2008

Somehow I missed this news item, and maybe you did, too. Then again, perhaps the mainstream media took pains to keep this one quiet, hoping the fire wouldn’t hit the fan.

It seems that in 2003 an honor student in Arizona at Safford Middle School named Savana Redding, an eighth-grader with no disciplinary record, was strip-searched — and I mean really strip-searched, down to the crotch of her panties — in pursuit of nonprescription ibuprofen tablets. [See the end of this article for links to news stories.] Ibuprofen is the equivalent of the pain-relieving ingredient in Advil, Motrin, etc…, and never known to provide a “high” or to be addictive. Two such pills (the typical dosage) supposedly equal “prescription strength” — providing school authorities just enough wiggle room to go to extremes.

Today, under the absurd “no tolerance” drug policies in schools, no type of medication, from aspirin to Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol, is allowed unless it is given to the school nurse by a parent, and then dispensed by the nurse to the student. In other words, it is easier for a child to secure an abortion referral from a K-12 educational facility than it is to relieve a headache. Like the aggravations suffered by law-abiding passengers at airports in the name of terrorism, schoolchildren are deemed automatically guilty until proven innocent, and “probable cause” does not apply.

Independent.co.uk
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 4 April 2008

The number of migratory songbirds returning to North America has gone into sharp decline due to the unregulated use of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals across Latin America.

Ornithologists blame the demand for out-of-season fruit and vegetables and other crops in North America and Europe for the destruction of tens of millions of passerine birds. By some counts, half of the songbirds that warbled across America's skies only 40 years ago have gone, wiped out by pesticides or loss of habitat.

Forty-six years ago, the naturalist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, a study of the ravages caused to wildlife, especially birds, by DDT. The chemical's use on American farms almost eradicated entire species, including the peregrine falcon and bald eagle.

The pesticide was banned and bird numbers recovered, but new and highly toxic pesticides banned by the US and European Union are being widely used in Latin America.

OpEdNews
April 2, 2008
By Barbara Peterson

The people of the Bay area of California are about to be sprayed with a new pesticide not registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a pre-emptive strive against a perceived threat from the Light Brown Apple Moth.

"In August, the California Department of Food and Agriculture plans to spray pesticides in five Bay Area counties for the invasive species" (CBS 5, 2008). One of the chemicals being used is Checkmate, manufactured by Suterra, LLC, which is owned by Stewart Resnick, one of the richest men in California, and owner of the largest farming operation of tree crops in the world. Mr. Resnick is also included in California Governor Schwarzenegger's top 100 donors. (Arnold Watch, 2008)

David Hambling
NewScientist.com
March 21, 2008

A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads.

The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on this website (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound.

Released by US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, US, the 1998 report gives an overview of what was then the state of the art in directed energy weapons for crowd control and other applications.

Provided by What Doctors Don't Tell You
March 29, 2008
by Healthy News Service

Mercury has been banned from all dental fillings in Norway. Dentists in the country had to start using safer alternatives as a matter of law from the beginning of this year. The metal has also been banned from all products, including measuring instruments.

The country had previously restricted the use of amalgam fillings, especially in children and pregnant and nursing women, but is the first in the world to enforce a complete ban.

Independent.co.uk
By Geoffrey Lean
Sunday, 30 March 2008

Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

OpedNews
March 25, 2008
by Frosty Wooldridge

If you should see this amazing floating pile of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, it’s called “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” It features three million tons of plastic debris floating in an area larger than Texas. An eye-popping 46,000 pieces of plastic float on every square mile of ocean! Humans toss another 2.5 million pieces into our oceans hourly.

Captain Paul Watson, www.seasheperd.org, composed an essay, “The Plastic Sea.” He wrote a penetrating piece on humanity’s desecration of our oceans. If you ever see this plastic ‘monster’ as I have, it will sicken you to the core of your soul. But the terror it manifests sickens you further!

“On the beach on San Juan Island, Washington, Allison Lance walks her dogs every morning,” Watson said. “She carries a plastic bag in her hand to carry the bits and pieces of plastic debris she picks up. Each morning she fills the bag, but by the next morning there is always another bag to be filled. Joey Racano does the same in Huntington Beach further south in California. The harvest of plastic waste is never-ending. Allison's and Joey's beaches, and practically every beach around the world is similarly cursed.

Alternet
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
March 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80505/

Editor's Note: Read more about this topic on AlterNet from Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Watch.

AMY GOODMAN: Saturday was World Water Day, and the United Nations estimates close to 1.5 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water. What about here in the United States?

The Associated Press has conducted an extensive investigation into the drinking water in at least twenty-four major American cities across the country, which contain trace amounts of a wide array of pharmaceuticals. The amounts might be small, but scientists are worried about the long-term health and environmental consequences of their presence in the water supplies of some forty-one million Americans.

The five-month investigation of sixty-two metropolitan areas and fifty-one smaller cities found that many drinking water suppliers, including bottled water companies, do not even test for the presence of drugs in the water. The utilities that do test for drugs often don't tell customers about the trace amounts of medications in their water.

NaturalNews.com
March 18, 2008
by Cheryl McCoy

(NaturalNews) Armed with the proper information, there's no reason to fear the latest news about toxins and pharmaceutical drugs being found in your water. Not to say that this news isn't alarming. Measures must be taken to remove these harmful substances from our eco-system. But until the day that dream becomes a reality, you can protect yourself and your loved ones with calcium bentonite clay. Taken internally, calcium bentonite clay safely removes toxins from your system.

What's All the Uproar About?

A recent article in the Washington Post (Area Tap Water Has Traces of Medicines) warned that trace amounts of 6 popular prescription drugs had been found in the area's drinking water, and that these harmful substances could not be filtered out by most treatment systems. The drugs found included antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, a disinfectant, and even anti-seizure medication – all found in a water supply that serves more than 1 million people. And this is not an isolated incident.

According to the article, "Pharmaceuticals, along with trace amounts of caffeine, were found in the drinking water supplies of 24 of 28 metropolitan areas tested." Nationwide, the AP reported that researchers found anti-depressants, antacids, synthetic hormones from birth control pills, and many other human and animal medicines in the water. In San Francisco, tests found a sex hormone. In New York, the water tested positive for heart medicines and a prescription tranquilizer. The article states that scientists do not know the health effects of long-term exposure to such drugs. And while some scientist are saying there's nothing to worry about, other's fear chronic exposure could alter immune responses or interfere with adolescents' developing hormone systems. Although experts agree that aquatic life are most at risk from exposure to the drugs in rivers and streams, researchers are concerned about what they don't know about human health effects.

CommonDreams News center
March 12, 2008 by Reuters
by Carey Gillam

Widespread contamination of U.S. corn, soybeans and other crops by genetically engineered varieties is threatening the purity of organic and natural food products and driving purveyors of such specialty products to new efforts to protect their markets, industry leaders said this week.

A range of players, from dairy farmers to natural food retailers, are behind an effort to introduce testing requirements and standards for certification aimed at keeping contamination at bay. That goal is rapidly becoming harder, however, as planting of biotech corn, soybeans, and other crops expands across the United States.

“Now there is a real shortage of organic grain for animal husbandry and dairy operations,” said Organic Consumers Association national director Ronnie Cummins. “People are having to be real careful.”

Proponents of the plan are rolling it out this week at an industry meeting in Anaheim, California, seeking to get the entire organic and natural foods industry to agree on testing and standard certifications. Companies that get certified will be allowed to use a seal designating as much on their products.

Xenophilia
March 10, 2008

This is in the news today but see the 2001 article on Salon.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit, Michigan, to Louisville, Kentucky.

Daily Mail
Geoffrey Lean
February 27, 2008

Next time you hear a starling sing, stop and listen hard. It may well be warning of a peril that endangers the whole world of nature - and the very future of the human race itself.

For scientists have found that gender-bender chemicals - increasingly contaminating the environment, our food, our water and our bodies - are having a bizarre effect on common birds, causing the males to give voice to longer and more complex songs.

This is only the latest in a long series of increasingly urgent alarms being sounded by wildlife against an insidious but devastating danger that threatens our children.

But so far our leaders have steadfastly and scandalously turned a deaf ear to them - and, even more shamefully, ignored the first signs that the peril is already affecting birth patterns, causing thousands of babies who should have been boys to be born as girls instead.

Starlings and their diverse, complicated and mimicking - though not beautiful - songs have long fascinated humanity.

Mozart was entranced by a starling after it copied a tune that the great composer was whistling in a pet store.

Modern scientists have discovered that starlings' songs contain similar patterns to human speech.

But if we could, indeed, understand what they are communicating, we would be wise to take heed.

Steve Lendman
February 22, 2008

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and highlights one in particular - Jeffrey Smith's "Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." Detailed information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter). Consumers don't know what they're eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health.

Soaring Spirit with Tears
February 13, 2008

Who is Monsanto?

The world's largest supplier of herbicides, bioengineered seeds, and hormones to increase milk production. Its primary product is Roundup and its goal is global dominance of the food supply.

Roundup and its cousins are marketed under about 90 different names. In 1997, Monsanto lost a lawsuit and agreed to stop using the terms "bio-degradable" and "environmentally friendly" in its advertising. Why? Because these products would appear to be direct descendents of Agent Orange, the company's most infamous product. The company has stated that Roundup is safer than table salt but independent analyses show that the product contains 41% glyphosate and the rest is water and any of 2300 other chemicals that are "trade secrets."

The primary byproduct of herbicide manufacture is dioxin, a chemical described by some as the most toxic on the Planet. It has been implicated in any number of issues from Agent Orange to the Love Canal.

A study at Lund University in Sweden suggests that herbicides seriously lower immunity in such a way as to allow viruses such as Epstein-Barr to proliferate. They are also implicated in the epidemic increase of non-Hodgkins lymphomas.

Health Medicine Center

February 6, 2008

by Len Saputo, MD

Too many pharmaceuticals just aren't safe. The shocking truth is that drug complications are the third leading cause of death in America! Only heart disease and cancer cause more deaths than our pharmaceutical armamentareum! How necessary is it to use drugs that can cause problems serious enough to put you in the hospital, cause permanent disability, or even kill you? The April 15, 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, contains a revealing article authored by Jason Lazarou, et al, that exposes the magnitude and seriousness of "adverse drug reactions" in US hospitals. (1)

These authors evaluated 39 prospective studies between 1966 and 1996 that assessed these issues. They didn't include errors in drug administration, non-compliance, or "possible" adverse reactions. Their goal was to identify those complications that were solely related to the use of drugs as recommended by the manufacturer.

What they discovered was shocking! The overall incidence of hospitalizations related to adverse drug reactions was 6.7%, and the associated death rate, 0.32%. This translates into 2.2 million serious drug reactions, and 106,000 deaths every year in America, at an estimated cost of as much as $4 billion per year.(2, 3)

CNN
By Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty
February 4, 2008

The FBI wants to use eye scans, combined with other data, to help identify suspects.
CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) -- The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in."

But it's unnerving to privacy experts.

San Francisco Chronicle
February 3, 2008
By David Perlman

A high-security laboratory where deadly microbes are being grown by scientists seeking defenses against terrorist attacks began operating in Livermore last week without public announcement, and opponents said Friday that they will go to federal court in an effort to close the facility down.

Built inside the closed campus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the facility has been controversial ever since it was first proposed by homeland security officials more than five years ago. Tri-Valley CARES, the East Bay watchdog group that has long fought nuclear weapons research there, has led the fight against it with protests and legal actions.

The facility is known as a Biosafety-level 3 laboratory where highly trained workers, high-tech airlocks and extremely rigorous safety measures are required by federal rules in order to contain any of more than 40 potentially lethal disease-causing bacteria, viruses and fungi stored inside.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency of the Energy Department, which oversees the Livermore site, announced Monday only that it had "granted approval" for Livermore to begin operating its new biosafety laboratory.

The New York Times
January 30, 2008
By STEVEN CHILLRUD, GREG O’MULLAN and WADE McGILLIS

AT the suggestion of the federal Department of Homeland Security, New York City Council members have drafted legislation requiring anyone who has or uses a detector that measures chemical, biological or radioactive agents to get a license from the Police Department.

The purpose of the bill is to reduce unwarranted anxiety and damage from false alarms of terrorist attacks. Proponents say police officers need to know where detectors are and make sure they’re reliable. But the bill, which appears to be the first of its kind in the country and a model for other cities, could stifle the collection of environmental information vital to the public good.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Air Car Preps for Market
Some still question the vehicle's chances of success, despite a boost from India.
By Tyler Hamilton
http://www.technologyreview.com/

A French-designed car that's propelled by compressed air and claims speeds of more than 60 miles per hour is expected to go into commercial production as early as this summer, although skeptics of the technology aren't holding their breath.

Using compressed air, they argue, may mean zero tailpipe emissions, but it's unlikely to provide enough range or speed to appeal to the masses, particularly in North America. "Compressed air does not contain much energy--that's the killer," says Larry Rinek, senior research analyst for automotive technologies at consultancy Frost & Sullivan. "This is more a nice garage project for a Popular Science subscriber."

But the dream lives on. Motor Development International (MDI), based near Nice, France, has developed several prototypes of its Compressed Air Technology (CAT) car since its first engine was created 14 years ago. Now company founder Guy Negre, an aeronautics engineer who developed a high-performance racing engine for Formula 1 in the late 1980s, is counting on India's largest carmaker, Tata Motors, to bring his highly anticipated Air Car to market later this year.

The Air Car was supposed to hit the streets years ago, but its release always seems just around the corner. MDI announced in 2002 that the cars would be used to replace taxis in Mexico City, but nothing resulted.

Dental Mercury Use Banned in Norway, Sweden and Denmark Because Composites Are Adequate Replacements

Published on Jan 3, 2008 - 7:06:49 AM
By: Mercury Policy Project

Norway recently announced a ban on the use of mercury, including dental amalgam, that took effect on January 1, 2008. Sweden announced a similar ban and dentists in Denmark will no longer be allowed to use mercury in fillings after April 1, 2008.

"These bans clearly indicate that amalgam is no longer needed. There are viable non-mercury filling substitutes that are used everyday in the US," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "By eliminating amalgam use, which is 50% mercury, we can reduce mercury pollution much more efficiently than end-of-the-pipeline solutions."

In a prepared statement, Norwegian Minister of the Environment Erik Solheim said that the reason for the ban is the risk that mercury from products may constitute in the environment. "Mercury is among the most dangerous environmental toxins. Satisfactory alternatives to mercury in products are available, and it is therefore fitting to introduce a ban," said Solheim.

OpEdNews
January 23, 2008
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research
December 4, 2007

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can't be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world's richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

In 2006 when most people in such a situation might think of retiring to a quiet Pacific island, Bill Gates decided to devote his energies to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest 'transparent' private foundation as it says, with a whopping $34.6 billion endowment and a legal necessity to spend $1.5 billion a year on charitable projects around the world to maintain its tax free charitable status. A gift from friend and business associate, mega-investor Warren Buffett in 2006, of some $30 billion worth of shares in Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway put the Gates' foundation into the league where it spends almost the amount of the entire annual budget of the United Nations' World Health Organization.

NewsWithViews.com
By Jim Kouri
December 7, 2007

In comprehensive tests for an industrial chemical used in the United States to line cans of foods, a watchdog group's laboratory discovered a compound linked to birth defects in more than half of the samples of canned fruit, vegetables, soda, and baby formula from supermarket shelves, according to an Environmental Working Group report released last November.

The lab tests conducted for EWG found bisphenol A, or BPA, in 55 of 97 cans of food purchased from major supermarket chains in the states of California, Connecticut and Georgia. The EWG lab tested 27 national name brands and three store brands, according to their report.

Global Research
December 4, 2007
By F. William Engdahl

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can’t be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

rumormillnews.com
By: tangodog
November 12, 2007

On November 7, 2007, the Cosco Busan container ship bound for South Korea hit the protective bumper around the second bridge tower west of Yerba Buena Island while sailing in very heavy fog. The Cosco Busan sustained a gash on its port side 70 feet long. The buffer around the tower was damaged and so was the ship, but the tower itself suffered no damage. Fuel spilled for thirty minutes following the collision and resulted in 58,000 gallons of fuel oil polluting the Bay.

The Sydney Morning Herald
November 13, 2007

Authorities say more than 30,000 birds have been killed by the thousands of tonnes of oil that leaked after a heavy storm broke a tanker apart near the Black Sea.

Countless other birds, weighed down by thick coatings of the fuel oil, hopped weakly along the shore or sat helplessly in the sand yesterday.

Workers with pitchforks and shovels started the backbreaking labour of gathering up vast clumps of oil mixed with sand and seaweed.

The spill from the tanker that split apart in the strait connecting the Black and Azov seas is seen as potentially the worst environmental disaster in the region in recent years. It prompted criticism that many Russian tankers aren't seaworthy.

"Some 30,000 birds have died and it's not possible to count how many fish. The damages are so great that it's hard to assess. It can be equated with an ecological catastrophe," Alexander Tkachev, the governor of the Krasnodar region, said yesterday..

CommonDreams.org
November 13, 2007
by Agence France Presse

LONDON - Countries gathered under an international accord on maritime pollution have warned against offbeat experiments to tackle climate change by sowing the sea with chemicals to help soak up airborne carbon dioxide (CO2).

Parties to the London Convention and London Protocol declared that they hold authority over such experiments, and “large-scale operations” of this kind “are currently not justified,” according to a statement issued on Monday.

Several controversial experiments have been carried out or are being planned to “fertilise” areas of the sea with iron or urea to see whether this encourages the growth of plankton.

Global Research
November 8, 2007
By Jeffery M. Smith

Genetically modified (GM) foods are inherently unsafe, and current safety assessments are not competent to protect us from or even identify most dangers. Overwhelming evidence to support this conclusion is now compiled in the book Genetic Roulette: The documented health risks of genetically engineered foods, which presents an abundance of adverse findings and theoretical risks associated with GM foods.1

NewsWithViews.com
By Rosalind Peterson
November 2, 2007

Prepare yourself for more water shortages, floods, droughts, and a sharp decline in food supplies in the United States when U.S. Senate Bill 1807 & U.S. House Bill 3445, that were introduced on July 17, 2007, are voted into law. These identical bills, titled: “Weather Mitigation Research and Development Policy Authorization Act of 2007”, are moving forward at a rapid rate in Committees on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Please note that these bills were not referred to Committees on Agriculture, Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, or Forestry, and that you were not invited to debate the merits of these bills by your elected representatives.

NewsTarget.com
October 25 2007
by Rami Nagel

(NewsTarget) On September 9th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F, on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
October 7, 2007

Congressional investigators will hammer the Environmental Protection Agency in a soon-to-be-released report for its flawed examination and cleanup of hundreds of factories that once processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite into insulation.

But public health specialists say the investigation ignores an even greater failure: the EPA’s refusal to adequately warn millions of homeowners that they may be exposed to cancer-causing asbestos in that insulation.

The Government Accountability Office conducted the investigation for Congress. The report, expected to be made public later this month, will say that the EPA’s examination of sites in Spokane, Portland and 264 other communities that processed ore from Libby, Mont., used outdated criteria and underestimated or completely missed the dangers to people who worked there or lived nearby.

ScienceDaily
October 4, 2007

Science Daily — Swedish researchers have discovered that oseltamivir (Tamiflu); an antiviral drug used to prevent and mitigate influenza infections is not removed or degraded during normal sewage treatment. Consequently, in countries where Tamiflu is used at a high frequency, there is a risk that its concentration in natural waters can reach levels where influenza viruses in nature will develop resistance to it.

Widespread resistance of viruses in nature to Tamiflu increases the risk that influenza viruses infecting humans will become resistant to one of the few medicines currently available for treating influenza.

"Antiviral medicines such as Tamiflu must be used with care and only when the medical situation justifies it," advises Björn Olsen, Professor of Infectious Diseases with the Uppsala University and the University of Kalmar. "Otherwise there is a risk that they will be ineffective when most needed, such as during the next influenza pandemic."

CommonDreams.org
September 27, 2007
by Rachel Shields

American researchers claim to have answered the riddle of the deformed frogs that have been appearing in increasing numbers around the world.

Run-off from farmland drenched in fertilisers is behind the explosion in amphibians missing legs, or having extra legs and other deformities, according to the scientists.

Nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilisers are leaching into rivers, causing significant changes to the aquatic ecosystem. This prompts algae growth and increases numbers in the snail population, animals which play host to parasitic flatworms called trematodes. These parasites infect birds, snails and amphibian larvae, causing severe limb deformities and an increase in mortality.

CommonDreams.org
July 25, 2007
by Adrianne Appel

BOSTON — A U.S. health agency has made research subjects of people in tiny Mossville, Louisiana by repeatedly monitoring dangerously high levels of dioxin in their blood while doing nothing to get the community out of harm’s way, residents say.

Further, the agency failed to release important test results for five years, and made it difficult for the community to obtain the actual data, say residents and their lawyers.

“The air is staggering,” said resident Haki Vincent. “Come stay at my place and you will see firsthand that the air and water is repulsive.”

Mossville is closed in by 14 chemical factories, including Petroleum giant Conaco Phillips and Georgia Gulf, a vinyl products manufacturer that had revenues of 2.4 billion dollars in 2006, according to the company.

Common Dreams News Center
July 24, 2007
by Jane Kay

Study says many use chemicals linked to fertility problems

Dozens of common household cleaning products contain hidden toxic chemicals linked to fertility disorders in lab animals, according to data gathered by a women’s research group.A type of glycol ether is frequently found in popular cleaning products such as Windex Aerosol, Formula 409, Lemon Fresh Pine-Sol and Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner, says the report released today by Women’s Voices for the Earth, a Montana-based nonprofit working to eliminate or reduce toxic chemicals in the home.

The chemical, called ethylene glycol butyl ether or EGBE, is on California’s list of toxic air contaminants. Some animal studies indicate that it produces reproductive problems, such as testicular damage, reduced fertility, death of embryos and birth defects. People exposed to high levels of EGBE for several hours have reported nose and eye irritation, headaches, vomiting and a metallic taste in their mouths, studies show.

June 19, 2007
NewScientist.com
Zeeya Merali

Toxic fumes on planes are poisoning pilots and rendering them unable to fly safely, say pilots, who are campaigning for "aerotoxic syndrome" to be recognised as a disease.

Two official investigations are being opened after concerns that highly toxic fuel contaminants are leaking into cabin air supply on commercial airliners in flight. The UK government is to fit air-monitoring equipment on board aircraft amid increasing concerns that passengers, pilots and cabin crew are being exposed. And 1500 pilots will take part in the first major health study designed to establish the extent of the problem.

NewsTarget/Truth Publishing, June 6, 2007
Published June 07, 2007
by Healthy News Service

Pharmaceuticals, including birth-control hormones and anti-seizure medications, have been found in Lake Michigan and public water supplies, according to a new study. The study was jointly sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the American Pharmacists Association.

The water system examined serves more than a quarter-million people in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Walker, part of Kentwood, Ada, Cascade and Grand Rapids townships, as well as parts of Ottawa County.

PhysOrg.com
June 18, 2007

So many carp have died in a lake near Toronto that local public works officials have scheduled special pickup days for dead fish.

People living near Lake Scugog, an hour's drive north of Toronto, also would like to know what is killing the fish, the Toronto Star reported. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has sent water samples to Guelph University but does not expect any results for about two weeks.

There's no agreement on what is happening in the lake. J.J. Beechie, a spokesman for the ministry, said the die-off involves only carp. But Jim Adams told the newspaper he has seen dead rock bass, sunfish and other species.

"There's something seriously wrong here," he said. "Normally the lake is covered with thousands of geese and seagulls. Where are they all? They know something we don't."

In the meantime, with Lake Scugog property owners hauling hundreds of pounds of dead fish off the beach, the Durham Region public works department scheduled dead fish pickups Saturday and Monday.

"It became painfully obvious there were far more fish than people could handle," said Cliff Curtis, the public works commissioner.

The New York Times
June 17, 2007
By WALT BOGDANICH

After a drug ingredient from China killed dozens of Haitian children a decade ago, a senior American health official sent a cable to her investigators: find out who made the poisonous ingredient and why a state-owned company in China exported it as safe, pharmaceutical-grade glycerin.

The Chinese were of little help. Requests to find the manufacturer were ignored. Business records were withheld or destroyed.

The Americans had reason for alarm. “The U.S. imports a lot of Chinese glycerin and it is used in ingested products such as toothpaste,” Mary K. Pendergast, then deputy commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, wrote on Oct. 27, 1997. Learning how diethylene glycol, a syrupy poison used in some antifreeze, ended up in Haitian fever medicine might “prevent this tragedy from happening again,” she wrote.

RCRWireless News
By Jeffrey Silva
May 30, 2007

WASHINGTON—A federal judicial panel has conditionally remanded a brain cancer lawsuit and class action headset lawsuit against mobile phone companies to courts in Florida and Pennsylvania respectively.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake of Baltimore earlier this month recommended to the Judicial Panel on Mulitdistrict Litigation that the brain cancer lawsuit—Louther v. AT&T Inc.—return to federal court in Florida and the headset lawsuit—Farina v. Nokia Corp. et al.—be sent back to a federal court in Pennsylvania.

PhysOrg.com
June 4, 2007

After a warning from a government watchdog group, schools and families in Britain are scrambling to remove Wi-Fi systems.

In April, a chief health watchdog official called for a "timely" review of Wi-Fi technology and its possible radiation effects, the Independent on Sunday reported. Since then, the public reportedly has rushed to remove Wi-Fi systems, particularly from elementary schools.

Los Angeles Times
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2007

Exposure to toxic materials in the womb can cause health problems later in life, an international panel declares.

In a strongly worded declaration, many of the world's leading environmental scientists warned Thursday that exposure to common chemicals makes babies more likely to develop an array of health problems later in life, including diabetes, attention deficit disorders, prostate cancer, fertility problems, thyroid disorders and even obesity.

The declaration by about 200 scientists from five continents amounts to a vote of confidence in a growing body of evidence that humans are vulnerable to long-term harm from toxic exposures in the womb and during their first years.

NewScientist.com news service
23 May 2007
Andy Coghlan

WATER washes away many things, but could it be used to kill harmful viruses, fungi and bacteria in wounds? The developers of a form of "super-oxidised" water certainly think so - and they claim it may do so more effectively than bleach, without harming human tissue.

Information on the product, called Microcyn, was presented last week at Global Healthcare, a biomedical business conference in Monte Carlo, Monaco. It revealed that wounds of patients with diabetes treated with the product and an antibiotic healed within 43 days on average, compared with 55 days for patients given the standard treatment of iodine plus an antibiotic.

PhysOrg.com
May 16, 2007

Domitila Lemus, left, and her granddaughter Ashley are shown in front of Sunnyside Union Elementary School on Thursday, May 10, 2007 in Strathmore, Calif. On Grandparent's Day in November 2006, Lemus accompanied her then 8-year-old granddaughter to school. As the girls lined up behind Sunnyside Elementary, Lemus started coughing. Foul clouds wafted onto the playground from the adjacent orange groves, and two children collapsed in spasm, vomiting on the blacktop. An Associated Press investigation has found that over the past decade, hundreds, possibly thousands, of schoolchildren in California and other agricultural states have been exposed to farm chemicals linked to sickness, brain damage and birth defects. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

The Independent
May 13, 2007
By Marie Woolf and Geoffrey Lean

'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".

They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools.

Science daily
May 7, 2007

Science Daily — The growing premature birth rate in the United States appears to be strongly associated with increased use of pesticides and nitrates, according to work conducted by Paul Winchester, M.D., professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He reports his findings May 7 at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting, a combined gathering of the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

GNN
guerrilla news network
May 2, 2007
By Peter Dearman

Please Lord, not the bees
It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one, they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

PHYSORG.com
May 3, 2007

(AP) -- Hundreds of dead seals have washed up on Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea shoreline in the past several days, bringing the total number of the animals found dead along the shoreline in recent weeks to 832, the Emergencies Agency said Wednesday.

Environmental officials in the Central Asian nation were trying to determine what killed seals - most of them young - the agency said in a statement. Preliminary tests showed some of the animals were infected with the distemper virus, authorities said.

Science and space
CNN.com
May 3, 2007

• USDA official: "This is the biggest general threat to our food supply"
• One-quarter of U.S. colonies vanish, about five times the normal winter loss
• Honeybees pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops in U.S.
• Not all scientists foresee a food crisis, noting prior large-scale bee die-offs

BELTSVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of America's honeybees could have a devastating effect on the country's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing its people to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees do not just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops the country has.

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By Katy Byron
CNN
May 2, 2007

• Contaminated feed found in 38 Indiana chicken farms; more farms likely affected
• Feed contains recalled pet food with tainted wheat gluten
• No human illnesses have been reported related to tainted poultry feed
• Reports of 4,150 dog and cat deaths related to pet food recall

NEW YORK (CNN) -- More farms across the United States will likely be affected by animal feed tainted with recalled pet food, federal health officials said Tuesday, after an investigation of Indiana chicken farms found the contaminated feed in more than three dozen facilities that raise poultry for human consumption.

The Food and Drug Administration said it expects farms in other states will report they received the tainted pet food and predicted that the number of plants that received contaminated feed could reach into the hundreds.

physorg.com
April 27, 2007

(AP) -- Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday. The potential risk to human health was said to be very low.

The government told the three states involved it would not allow meat from any of the hogs that ate the feed to enter the food supply.

No more than 345 hogs from farms in California, New York and South Carolina are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

The power of corporate greed in a Himalayan state

Copyright: Arun Shrivastava CMC

Hydro-electric power projects of private firms in Himachal Pradesh are being pushed by local officers who have made it clear to the people that they have vested interest in these projects. Officers of the state government have tried to influence local activists to support projects that would destroy the livelihoods of local villagers. Revenue officials are openly canvassing for these projects collecting signatures from villagers for approval. Where popular opposition is strong an environment of fear is being created by the local Police. Many Gram Panchayats [GP, or Village Councils] the chiefs [called Pradhans] are after petty contracts and decisions taken by the Gram Sabha [Village general body] are being overturned which is unconstitutional. This not only raises questions of conflict of interest, but given the scale of hydro-electric projects in this ecologically sensitive state, raises serious questions of long term sustainability of the Himalayas as a region of bio-diversity, carbon sink and a region that moderates global climate.

Shane Ellison M. Sc.
April 22, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Late comedian Bill Hicks said that “Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye.” With the onslaught of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising, watching television has now become suicide in slow motion. If you don’t know what DTC advertising is then you are likely a victim.

DTC advertising is a commercial that begins by highlighting some enormous biological problem like indigestion, sneezing or watery eyes. It ends by telling you about the miracle drug that will cure such insurmountable illness. The pharmaceutical industry states that DTC advertising is an important vehicle for conveying information to patients and medical doctors.[1] In reality, DTC advertising is a way of profiteering by converting healthy people into patients.

Bees have been going missing by the millions, leaving their hives never to come back, in what the experts have termed "Colony Collapse Disorder". Speculation is rife over what may be the cause of the trouble. Toxins from genetically modified crops and pesticides are prime suspects, but the question has also been raised, whether electromagnetic radiation - such as the mobile phone signals that cover most of the globe by now - may be to blame.

This latter hypothesis seems to get more credence from a report of three years ago from Germany, which Paul Doyon has translated into English.

The original in German can be found on the site of Eurotinnitus - as a PDF. Here is the translation into English by Paul Doyon:

Apr 19, 2007

Here are photographs of Cell Phone Transmission Towers camouflaged as natural trees which are springing up all over... birds seem to avoid them, however! http://waynesword.palomar.edu/faketree.htm

By Jon Rappoport
www.nomorefakenews.com
April 20, 2007

INTRODUCTION
Although the devastation wrought at Virginia Tech last Monday does not even begin to rank with what has happened in Iraq, it does have a more personal impact for many Americans. I'm taking this opportunity to point out some very significant facts about the Virginia murders.

Below, you'll find my latest articles on the subject. I'm NOT emailing everything I'm writing about Virginia Tech. If you want to follow the whole thread, as it emerges, go to my site:

www.nomorefakenews.com

Note: Keep scrolling down the home page there. Some more recent articles are posted lower on the page than the earlier ones.

CVBT
MERCED
April 12, 2007
by Ching Lee

• Beekeepers baffled, farmers worried

• Colony collapse disorder now found in 24 states, Canada

Beekeepers nationwide are opening their hives and finding them empty, a baffling phenomenon that has researchers scratching their heads and farmers worrying about their crops.

The bees are mysteriously vanishing and no one is sure why. Instead of thriving colonies, beekeepers say they're typically finding only a queen and a few attendants left -- but no trace of the other bees, not even their bodies.

12 April 2007
New Scientist
Aria Pearson

If true, it could turn the conventional wisdom of how obesity causes diabetes on its head. Emerging evidence suggests that pollutants stored in body fat may be contributing to the ongoing rise of type 2 diabetes.

While obesity is still thought to be a major cause, there is more and more evidence to suggest that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) also play a key role.

POPs are synthetic chemicals that can accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals. Many POPs - such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were used as coolants in electrical equipment, and pesticides such as DDT - have been banned in developed countries, but they remain in the food chain and often end up in people.

Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson
April 10, 2007

GM, toxic chemicals, chemtrails destroying eco-system, threatening very survival of humanity

The alarming decline in bee populations across the United States and Europe represents a potential ecological apocalypse, an environmental catastrophe that could collapse the food chain and wipe out humanity. Who and what is behind this flagrant abuse of the eco-system?

Many people don't realize the vital role bees play in maintaining a balanced eco-system. According to experts, if bees were to become extinct then humanity would perish after just four years.

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man," said Albert Einstein.
Others would say four years is alarmist and that man would find other food sources, but the fact remains that the disappearance of bees is potentially devastating to agriculture and most plant life.

Exclusive from New Scientist
April 3, 2007
Debora Mackenzie

"This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction." Startling words - but spoken by the father of the Green Revolution, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, they are not easily dismissed.

An infection is coming, and almost no one has heard about it. This infection isn't going to give you flu, or TB. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. It is after the wheat plants that feed more people than any other single food source on the planet. And because of cutbacks in international research, we aren't prepared. The famines that were banished by the advent of disease-resistant crops in the Green Revolution of the 1960s could return, Borlaug told New Scientist.

BBC NEWS
April 3, 2007

Air pollution may be a bigger risk to health than exposure to radiation, such as that after the Chernobyl disaster, a study suggests.

Researchers examined the health impact of the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

They concluded the risks were probably no greater than those posed by obesity, smoking and urban pollution.

However, a radiation expert cast doubt on the BMC Public Health research.

I'm not sure that it helps to compare the health risks from radiation among survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan with the risks from obesity or smoking -Dr Michael Clark, Health Protection Agency

He said the risks posed by radiation were not comparable to those from other sources.

Researcher Dr Jim Smith, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said exposure to radiation took fewer years off life expectancy than heavy smoking or severely obese.

Crusador Health Truth Revealed
April 3, 2007
By Sally Deneen

Glen Boyd's students didn't know what they might find as they dipped containers into the water and took them back for tests. What turned up? Medicine.

There was cholesterol medication. There was the hormone estrone, a form of the estrogen prescribed to help menopausal women. And there was a strong pain reliever called naproxin. Low levels of these medications have also shown up in surface waters in other parts of the world.

While no one claims this mildly revved-up water hurts humans--it is further diluted before it reaches home faucets--some scientists are concerned about negative effects on the environment. And with a flood of new drugs as findings from the Human Genome Project are released, researchers wonder: How many more medications will end up in rivers and lakes?

The New York Times
April 3, 2007
By CORNELIA DEAN

Residues of birth control pills, antidepressants, painkillers, shampoos and a host of other compounds are finding their way into the nation’s waterways, and they have public health and environmental officials in a regulatory quandary.

On the one hand, there is no evidence the traces of the chemicals found so far are harmful to human beings. On the other hand, it would seem cavalier to ignore them.

The pharmaceutical and personal care products, or P.P.C.P.’s, are being flushed into the nation’s rivers from sewage treatment plants or leaching into groundwater from septic systems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, researchers have found these substances, called “emerging contaminants,” almost everywhere they have looked for them.

NewsWithViews.com
By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
March 22, 2007

The main factor responsible for the rapidly rising incidence of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer and uterine cancer in women appears to be the excessive exposure of modern men and women to estrogen. If testosterone had anything to do with prostate cancer there should be an epidemic of this disease in teenage males. All persons on planet earth are getting, for the first time in history, steady large exposure to estrogen from inhaled fuel exhaust, plastics, estrogen implants in meat and fed to chickens, herbicides, pesticides and propylene glycol.

Alliance for Human Research Protection
AHRP
March 18, 2007
By Vera Hassner Sharav

The Washington Post reports that "a new trend" in organic harvesting is underway within minutes of cardiac arrest. This government sanctioned program euphemistically called, "donation after cardiac death" (DCD) accelerates the organ "donation" process.

"Some doctors and bioethicists, however, say the practice raises the disturbing specter of transplant surgeons preying on dying patients for their organs, possibly pressuring doctors and families to discontinue treatment, adversely affecting donors' care in their final days and even hastening their deaths."

"The person is not dead yet," said Jerry A. Menikoff, an associate professor of law, ethics and medicine at the University of Kansas. "They are going to be dead, but we should be honest and say that we're starting to remove the organs a few minutes before they meet the legal definition of death."

In Denver, surgeons at Children's Hospital wait 75 seconds before starting to remove hearts from infants.

The number of these "donations" more than doubled from 268 in 2003 to at least 605 in 2006, enabling surgeons to transplant more than 1,200 additional kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts and other organs. "It's starting to go up exponentially," said James Burdick, who leads organ-donor efforts at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

NewsWithViews.com
By Joyce Morrison
March 18, 2007

Henry is a good man - the kids all love him. He picks out kids that often go unnoticed and gives them special attention. They are not the prettiest or most popular children, but he always gives them a pat on the back and words of encouragement.

Many of these young people would like to participate with livestock projects in 4-H and FFA, but they don’t have livestock. Henry takes a lot of pride in his herd of cross-bred cattle, and he also takes a lot of pride in seeing kids grow up to be good citizens. He gives these “special kids” the opportunity to use one of his herd animals as their project and if they work hard, they can show the animal in competition at the county fair. Without Henry, the lessons learned about responsibility and pride in achievement would never happen.

Los Angeles Times
By Lianne Hart
March 19, 2007

An unusually high number are washing up along Texas' Gulf Coast this calving season for unknown reasons.

GALVESTON, TEXAS — An unusually large number of dead bottlenose dolphins have washed ashore near this Gulf of Mexico city in the last month, and investigators are looking at laboratory slides, satellite photos and anything else they can think of in their search for clues.

About 180 dolphins are stranded in Texas each year, many from January through March — their calving season, when infants may die during birth or become separated from their mothers and are unable to survive alone.

The 47 bodies found recently included many newborns with umbilical cords still attached. That is three times the number found during the same period last year.

Omega News
March 9, 2007
By Dr. Gerald Goldberg

As concerns the pineal, the role of calcium in general and the role of crystals within the pineal gland reveal some interesting points. As in radio and other transmitters, crystals act to convert certain discrete frequencies into electrical signals. Before we had all of the electro-pollution, animals could simply orient themselves to the earths electromagnetic signature. Additionally animals could store into memory at a subconscious level the discrete signatures of subtle variations in electromagnetic signalling from various regions. This would explain the highly specific nature of migratory behaviour seen in certain animals. What has not been appreciated is the ability which has probably evolved over time to see, complex patterns that are generated from the earth's electromagnetic signature.

The New York Times
March 9, 2007
By FELICITY BARRINGER

WASHINGTON, March 8 — The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service defended the agency requirement that two employees going to international meetings on the Arctic not discuss climate change, saying diplomatic protocol limited employees to an agreed-on agenda.

Two memorandums written about a week ago and reported by The New York Times and the Web site of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Thursday set strict parameters for what the two employees could and could not discuss at meetings in Norway and Russia.

Washington Post
By Rick Weiss
March 2, 2007

The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods.

The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds.

The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars.

The New York Times
February 27, 2007
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 — David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

The New York Times
February 24, 2007
By PAUL GIBLIN and ERIC LIPTON

PHOENIX, Feb. 23 — X-ray vision has come to the airport checkpoint here, courtesy of federal aviation security officials who have installed a new device that peeks underneath passengers’ clothing to search for guns, bombs or liquid explosives.

The new body scanning machine, which went into use on Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and will be tested later at airports in Los Angeles and New York, will screen only volunteers, at least initially. Transportation Security Administration officials want to make sure the machine is reliable and fast enough to replace the traditional pat-down — and that it does not provoke too many protests.

Daily Mail
Health
February 20, 2007

Women's lives are being put at risk because drug companies don't include them in drugs trials. This means potential side-effects are not exposed until the drugs hit the shelves, and by then it's too late, says Dr ANITA HOLDCROFT, a consultant anaesthetist at Imperial College London and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

She recently voiced her concerns in the Journal Of The Royal Society Of Medicine.

For too long there has been a dangerous sex divide in the world of medicine. While we talk about the achievements of feminism, there is one significant area where women are still second-class citizens - and it puts thousands of women's lives at risk.

Daily mail
By LAURA CLARK
February 19, 2007

The devastating extent to which watching television damages children's health is spelt out in a report today.

It lists 15 ways that over-exposure to TV can harm youngsters - from fuelling obesity and shortsightedness to causing premature puberty and autism.

Author Dr Aric Sigman, who reviewed 35 academic studies, said the findings implicated television in 'the greatest unacknowledged health scandal of our time'.

He accused Ministers of ignoring the link between TV and a host of adverse consequences in the young, including slower progress at school and poor health continuing into adulthood.

Limiting time spent in front of the Box must become a Government priority to improve children's well-being and save the Health Service millions, he said.

Press Release
Source: www.organicconsumers.org
February 19, 2007

Secret Monsanto Genetically Engineered Potato Study Suppressed for 8 Years
GM Potatoes are "unfit for human consumption"
GM Free Cymru, Feb 16, 2007
Straight to the Source

A secret feeding study of Monsanto GM potatoes, conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and suppressed for 8 years, showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the organs of the rats in the study (1) (2). In comparison the rats in the "control groups" which were fed on normal potatoes or on a non-potato diet were healthier, and had much less organ and tissue damage. This research, fully supported by Monsanto through the provision of the GM potatoes, was conducted at approximately the same time as Arpad Pusztai's research in the Rowett Institute.

Four years ago, I was fab, fit and in my 40s with a dynamic marketing and media business, exciting social life and active sporting schedule. My lifestyle was exciting and affluent. I had energy and dynamism. Without noticing too much, I gradually succumbed to a host of symptoms which sapped my energy and stole my memory. I kept myself going but as insomnia, erratic high blood pressure and heart palpitations joined the list, I got nervous.

Two years ago, my right body tingled and I had numbness in patches down my right leg, hip and right hand. I could hear buzzing in my right ear and I suddenly lost 40% my right eye-sight overnight.
I tried my doctor, various complementary practitioners, a Chinese doctor and then as I felt more and more unwell I paid what seemed an enormous sum to visit a private 'doctor' on Harley Street. Not one of them told me what was wrong with me. This so-called 'doctor' is now being investigated by his accrediting Board. They have been unable to trace his medical qualifications and fear that he may have misrepresented his background. He diagnosed radiation on the basis of a hair test and prescribed large doses of one brand of supplements which I took religiously only to find that my health deteriorated further and that the loading on my system eventually gave me liver damage. He totally failed to diagnose the complexity of my condition.

Here is an updated and expanded version of the article in PDF format

Many people have a hard time fathoming that something that they cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear - sense with the five senses - can harm them so much. But if people did really know the facts regarding the dangers of cell phones and WiFi and the masts that emit a pervasive level of microwave radiation, would they still be willing to use them? Would they still be willing to allow the antennas to be built in vicinity of their homes, work places, schools, and hospitals?

Dr. George Carlo, who used to run a multi-million dollar research program for the cell phone industry and went public regarding the dangers posed by cell phones, uses the analogy of putting a frog in water. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. However, if you put a frog in cold water and gradually heat the water, you can cook the frog because the frog's body will adjust to the slight changes in temperature and it will not notice it is being cooked. Well, the same thing might be happening to an unsuspecting public - a public that has not been informed about the real dangers of microwave radiation from cell phones, WiFi and other high-frequency-radiation emitting devices and antennas.

Aljazeera.net
February 14, 2007
11:55 MECCA TIME, 8:55 GMT

Britain and the United States are the worst places in the industrialised world for children to live, according to a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).

They ranked among the bottom third in the study which looked at overall well-being, health and safety, education, relationships, risk and their own sense of well-being.

The study said that child poverty - defined as the percentage of children living in homes with incomes below 50 per cent of the national median - remains above the 15 per cent mark in Britain, the US and Ireland, as well as Spain, Portugal and Italy.

BBC NEWS:
February 13, 2007

Dutch-based oil trading group Trafigura is to pay the Ivorian government $198m (£102m) for a clean-up and inquiry after a"toxic waste" incident in 2006.

Trafigura say this is not "damages" and that there is no admission of liability on their part for whatever happened.

Ten people died and many fell ill after waste was shipped to Abidjan and left around the city in August.

As part of the deal, the Ivory Coast will drop any prosecutions or claims, now or in the future, against the firm.

Common Dreams News Center
February 12, 2007
The Guardian/UK
by John Vidal

Inquiry after chemicals found at site 30 years after their disposal

Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people. Yesterday the Environment Agency said it had launched an inquiry after the chemicals were found to be polluting underground water supplies and the atmosphere 30 years after they were dumped.

CASPIAN
www.spychips.com
www.nocards.org
By Katherine Albrecht
For immediate release
February 12, 2007

Human Chipping Company Omits Salient Risks from IPO Disclosure

VeriChip Corporation, the much-hated purveyor of the VeriChip human ID implant, is airing its dirty laundry this week. This is not by choice, mind you, but because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required the company to disclose its "risk factors" prior to launching its initial public offering of stock (IPO) Friday.

The company lays out nearly 20 pages of risk factors in its Form S-1 Registration Statement, a required document for the IPO. But what the company failed to reveal in its filing may be even more eye-opening, say CASPIAN privacy advocates Dr. Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. The pair, authors of the "Spychips" series of books, have been vocal critics of VeriChip, dogging the company in recent years and facing down its senior executives on radio and national television.