Lawsuit Alleges that Monsanto Influenced the EPA’s Classification of Glyphosate

In 2015, the World Health Organization categorized glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. A new lawsuit, filed on behalf of cancer victims, claims the Environmental Protection Agency had the information to label glyphosate as carcinogenic two years earlier and instead chose to claim glyphosate was “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”

Marion Copley, now deceased, was a toxicologist at the EPA for 30 years. In 2013, she wrote a letter to Jess Rowland, the chair of the EPA’s Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC), listing 14 reasons to classify glyphosate as carcinogenic. Copley also alleged that Rowland and other select colleagues changed important reports to benefit companies like Monsanto.

The lawsuit is demanding the release of Jess Rowland’s communications with Monsanto during his time on the CARC and his involvement with the release of the EPA’s memo declaring glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”

Something Isn’t Adding Up

This is not the first time there have been questions surrounding the EPA and their treatment of glyphosate. A glyphosate risk report that found glyphosate was not likely to be carcinogenic to humans, a direct contrast to the WHO report, was released in 2016 on the EPA website on April 29, only to be taken down four days later. This is not the first time two different groups of scientists (the IARC and CARC) have taken a look at the same problem and come up with conflicting views. But the EPA sent officials to help conduct the IARC study. The discrepancy in results was enough for the House of Representatives Science Committee to request interviews with four different EPA officials, including Jess Rowland. While it makes sense for the chair of the CARC to be mentioned, the letter from Marion Copley makes the EPA’s findings seem more like a dictate from private interests than an independent government report.

Where is Monsanto in All of This?

It goes without saying that Monsanto is deeply invested in keeping glyphosate from being labeled as a health hazard. It’s easy to sound like a conspiracy theorist, accusing the EPA of being in Monsanto’s back pocket, that EPA scientists collaborated with the scientists who found that glyphosate was a probable carcinogen and then walked it back. Monsanto is now using the EPA’s official report to dispute the study that the found that glyphosate was harmful. In that light, Marion Copley’s allegations of changing study findings to favor industry are not so outlandish. Until we have a transparent system, we have to trust that government science has our best interests at heart. Do we matter more than Monsanto?

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Gluten-Free Eaters Have Higher Levels of Arsenic and Mercury

The number of people with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity is on the rise. When they eliminate wheat and other gluten containing grains from their diet, they usually significantly increase their consumption of rice. Unfortunately, as it is growing, rice soaks up heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, and cadmium from the soil and water. According to a new study,  researchers found those who have been on a long-term, gluten-free diet have double the amount of arsenic in their systems and 70% more mercury than their gluten eating counterparts.

The Metal Sponge

Why does rice suck up arsenic and other heavy metals? Rice is flooded while it’s growing, in part to keep weeds in check and to discourage pests. Water enables the rice’s root system to draw in more nutrients from the soil. As it draws up nutrients, it also sucks up other things in the soil, like mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and tungsten.

Most of the rice in the U.S. is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, and California on farmland that was formerly used to grow cotton. Arsenic-based pesticides were used on much of the land to combat boll weevils. Combine those specific pesticides with rice’s extraction abilities, and high levels of heavy metals are the result.

What to Look For in Rice

This does not mean a gluten-free diet dooms you to heavy metal poisoning. With some smart planning and healthy choices, a gluten-free diet can leave you feeling great.

Not all rice is created equal. Though organic rice still has arsenic in it, it’s the best choice to avoid excessive pesticides on top of the metals naturally found in the rice. Brown rice has higher levels of arsenic than white rice. The hull or bran of the rice that gives brown rice its’ higher levels of magnesium, fiber, zinc, and folate also stores arsenic. Of the places where rice is grown, Basmati rice that is grown in California, India, and Pakistan contains less inorganic arsenic.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Another answer to the rice problem? Eat less rice and a greater variety of gluten-free grains. Rotating rice with grains like quinoa or millet will both decrease arsenic exposure and increase your body’s exposure to another nutritional profile. The same rotation can be applied to alternate flours. If you chose processed or pre-made foods, look for ones with alternative flours like chickpea or coconut. Switching up the type of flour you use at home can also limit your arsenic intake.

Get Them Out!

There are also foods that pull heavy metals from the body. Garlic, onions, and cilantro all help detox heavy metals and add extra flavor to food. Other edibles like chlorella, spirulina, and activated charcoal are also great at attracting heavy metals and helping the body process them out. Learn about Diatomaceous Earth, Total Nutrition, and read Top 5 Foods that Detox Heavy Metals and Toxins – With Protocol.

A Healthy Diet is The Best Defense

Someone on a gluten-free diet is more likely to eat rice and foods made with rice flour. The trade-off for this is higher levels of arsenic and mercury. This doesn’t negate the benefits of a gluten-free diet. It can even be seen as a motivation to incorporate new foods and grains into your diet. And check out How To Reduce the Arsenic in Your Rice by 80%.

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Vaccines Linked to the Diagnosis of Neurological Disorders

As natural health advocates, we are not anti-science. In fact, we want more vaccine science, not less. A new study from Yale School of Medicine and Penn State College of Medicine is just that. Researchers have discovered an association between the timing of vaccines and the onset of certain brain disorders in a subset of children.

Data from more than 95,000 insured children age 6-15 was analyzed. The study compared data from three groups: comparing children with certain neurological conditions, children who had received treatment for broken bones, and children who received treatment for open wounds. Dates of treatment for the 3 groups was analyzed comparing the onset of illness or injury to each child’s vaccinations.

The neurological conditions in the first group included obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorder, chronic tic disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder.

Researchers looked at each child’s medical records for the year prior to treatment to establish whether or not the child had received vaccines during that period.

This was a well-designed, tightly controlled study. Control subjects without brain disorders were matched with the subjects by age, geographic location and gender.

As expected, broken bones and open wounds showed no significant association with vaccinations.

New cases of major depression, bipolar disorder or ADHD also showed no significant association with vaccinations.

However, children who had been vaccinated were 80 percent more likely to be diagnosed with anorexia and 25 percent more likely to be diagnosed with OCD than their non-vaccinated counterparts. Vaccinated children were also more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and with tics compared to the controls.” – Robert Kennedy

Different Vaccines, Different Disorders

Certain vaccines resulted in higher diagnoses of certain disorders. The flu shot (recommended yearly by the CDC), was associated with a higher level of OCD, anorexia, and anxiety disorder. Children vaccinated for meningitis, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B saw higher rates of anorexia, chronic tic disorder, and OCD.

Study Conclusions

In the world we live in, science goes where the money goes. Researchers know that conducting a study that questions the safety or efficacy of vaccines is not likely to be a profitable endeavor. In fact, anyone working in science today knows how dangerous it is to disrupt the status quo. For one of many examples, check out Vaccines, Retroviruses, DNA, and the Discovery That Destroyed  Judy Mikovits’ Career. Regardless of these risks, these researchers have concluded:

This pilot epidemiologic analysis implies that the onset of some neuropsychiatric disorders may be temporally related to prior vaccinations in a subset of individuals.”

Perhaps the first half of the study’s opening sentence and the final closing sentence were chosen in an attempt to align themselves with the conventional vaccine stance and to mitigate blowback from the damning conclusions reached by their study.

The opening sentence was,

Although the association of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine with autism spectrum disorder has been convincingly disproven, the onset of certain brain-related autoimmune and inflammatory disorders has been found to be temporally associated with the antecedent administration of various vaccines.”

The first half of this sentence is simply not true. The CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, revealed the CDC coverup of evidence that the MMR is linked to autism in African American male children under a certain age. The second half is warning us about other problems: brain related autoimmune diseases and inflammatory disorders.

The final sentence was downright ridiculous. After revealing the association between these neurological disorders and vaccines, they had the guile to end their article with this sentence.

Finally, given the modest magnitude of these findings and the clear public health benefits of the timely administration of vaccines in preventing mortality and morbidity in childhood, we encourage families to maintain the currently recommended vaccination schedules while taking all necessary precautions as documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

This sentence speaks for itself. Draw your own conclusions.

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Fast Food Packaging Contains Dangerous Chemicals According to New Study – As If the Food Isn’t Bad Enough!

A new study reports that fast food packaging contains concerning levels of certain perfluoroalkyls and polyfluoroalkyls (PFAs), a relative of the chemicals used in non-stick pans, furniture, packing tape, and waterproof clothes. Among the items tested for PFAs were dessert and bread wrappers, sandwich and burger wrappers, paperboard containers, and paper cups. The dessert and bread wrappers were the biggest offenders, with 56% of them containing PFAs. Not only do these PFAs break down slowly in nature, but they’ve also been linked to higher cholesterol, higher rates of kidney and bladder cancer, weakened antibody responses to vaccines in children, and suppressed immune systems.

It’s Not Just the Wrappers

Fluorosurfactants come in many forms. They can be called PFAs, PFOA, PFOS, and PFCs. These chemicals are in the majority of stain-resistant, waterproof, non-stick, and fire-retardant items. The plethora of acronyms make it difficult to understand which ones have been banned. This creates confusion companies can use to their advantage.

The EPA has established a safety limit for these products, but the government doesn’t regulate them beyond that. The FDA did ban three PFCs found in pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags in 2016, and a form of PFAs, known as long chain PFAs, was banned in the early 2000s. All PFAs found in products like fast food wrappers are now short chain PFAs, which are the long chain PFAs minus a set of carbon molecules.

The Slow Takeover

In 2013, the Environmental Health Perspectives Journal published a study linking PFOAs in Teflon pans to thyroid disease. Many scientists have called for companies to stop using non-essential PFAs, while the FDA has approved nearly 100 new PFCs to use in food packaging in the last decade. The speed at which new fluorosurfactants are being developed makes it unlikely that scientific concerns will be taken as seriously as they should be.

Since fluorosurfactants take so long to break down in nature, they have plenty of time to migrate to water sources, release into the air, and contaminate soil. After looking at 36,000 water samples from more than 4,800 public water sources in 2016, Harvard University found that 16 million Americans are drinking water with PFAs. Of those water sources, 66 of them had levels at or above what the EPA considers safe.

Persistent Waste Creates Persistent Problems

One wonders where the ever growing number of PFAs will end up when they run out of space. No one seems to be clear on how they got in our water, and it doesn’t seem likely that anyone is going to step up and regulate them. PFAs continue to resist decomposition and mysteriously leach into water supplies and the food they are wrapped around unchecked, leaving us with a higher likelihood of thyroid disease, certain cancers, infertility, and developmental disorders in children. At some point, the advice to avoid fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn, and nonstick cookware will only minimize the exposure to PFAs. True avoidance will no longer be an option.

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Monsanto’s Glyphosate, Fatty Liver Disease Link Proven – Published, Peer-reviewed, Scrutinized Study

Glyphosate. The world’s most popular herbicide. An alleged cause of cancer. Available in supermarkets across the nation, whether you want it or not. So what is the latest accomplishment for Monsanto’s golden child? Fatty liver disease!

Dr. Michael Antoniou from King’s College in London has found a link between the herbicide and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition whose symptoms include fatigue, nausea, jaundice, cirrhosis, and abdominal pain, among others. It is found primarily in overweight and obese people, people with diabetes, and those with high cholesterol. According to Dr. Robin Mesnage, another author of the study,

The concentration of glyphosate that was added to the drinking water of the rats corresponds to a concentration found in tap water for human consumption. It is also lower than the contamination of some foodstuffs.”

Where is the Science?

Glyphosate has been on the market since 1974 and since the advent of genetically-modified, Roundup ready crops in 1996, more than 18 billion tons of the stuff has been used worldwide (nearly a fifth of that was in the U.S. alone). It’s been linked to environmental degradation, and the number of studies linking glyphosate to health issues are growing. The work from King’s College is the first to definitively identify a real risk glyphosate poses to human health. Dr. Antoniou says,

The findings of our study are very worrying as they demonstrate for the first time a causative link between an environmentally relevant level of Roundup consumption over the long-term and a serious disease.”

Long-term studies on the impact of glyphosate are few and subject to huge amounts of scrutiny. A previous two-year study, the Seralini study in 2012, tested rats for long-term toxicity and found that the rats developed tumors and had shorter life spans. The study was heavily criticized, and the publisher retracted it in 2013 despite protests from the authors.

The recently discovered link between glyphosate and fatty liver disease is peer-reviewed, scrutinized, published in Scientific Reports, and from a prestigious university. But it has only now been released. One of the authors on the paper is Gilles-Eric Seralini (he of the previously retracted study), and this study uses the same, roundly criticized breed of rat from the previous study. The Crop Protection Association has already called the validity of this study into question saying, “Glyphosate is amongst the most thoroughly tested herbicides on the market, and those studies by expert regulators have consistently concluded that glyphosate does not pose a risk to public health.”

Americans Enjoy a More Substantial Glyphosate Allowance

The Crop Protection Association is correct. Glyphosate is one of the most tested herbicides on the market (although generally for 90 days, not 730). From this testing, the government has decided that there is a safe amount of glyphosate that can be ingested. That amount, the allowable daily intake (ADI), is 1.75 mg per kg of body weight in the United States. In Europe, the ADI is much lower at 0.3 mg per kg of bodyweight. Immediately, this discrepancy calls to mind a certain stereotype, that of the overweight American tourist bobbing merrily through a sea of slim and sneering Europeans. With the link between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and glyphosate, is it too much of a leap to think that the rise of obesity in America could be caused by our lax attitude towards the omnipresent herbicide?

What is Non-Alcoholic Liver Disease?

Basically, fat accumulates in the liver when the liver cannot break it down or process it fast enough. The liver normally stores some fat, but when the liver builds up more than 5 – 10 percent of its weight in fat, it’s called fatty liver disease. In alcoholic fatty liver disease, the liver can break down if it is unable to process the amount of alcohol ingested. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease follows the same model, only without the alcohol. This problem, like so many health problems, starts in the gut.

Bacteria in the large and small intestine like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are responsible for breaking down fats in the body. The liver helps with this, sending bile into the small intestine to help with turning the food into smaller molecules. But a digestive system without enough beneficial bacteria to properly digest food is left with something closer to the original fat molecules. Unabsorbed fats should stay in the intestine, but the bile from the liver is responsible for cleaning the intestine. Almost all of that bile is recycled back to the liver, potentially carrying the less digested fats with it. From there, the liver can be overwhelmed by the accumulated fats that it can’t clear out, much like its response to alcohol in alcoholic fatty liver disease.

And the Glyphosate Is…?

Much of the blame for non-alcoholic liver disease can be placed squarely on the diet of those who have it. Processed sugars and refined foods feed opportunistic, less helpful microbes in the gut like Candida, that in turn crowd out beneficial bacteria and place more stress on the liver. It’s all about the processed foods – the foods likely to have the highest concentration of glyphosate. And the glyphosate is everywhere.

The Detox Project at the University of California San Francisco found glyphosate in 93% of the urine samples from their early tests. This is the glyphosate that was processed out of the body. Meanwhile, the poor liver chugs along like some cliche of an overworked housewife, left with the overload of improperly digested food molecules, toxic food additives, and who knows exactly how much herbicide piled on top of it.

Research Matters. So Where’s the Rest of It?

Lack of research is the biggest issue with current government attitudes towards glyphosate and why this study matters. The authors of this study saw the connection between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and glyphosate with a regular dose 75,000 times below the European limit and over 400,000 times below the U.S. limit. There is no way to measure how much glyphosate people are being exposed to through proximity to agriculture, their food, and even their tap water. Glyphosate is everywhere, and we barely even know the results of long-term, repeated exposure to it.

Imagine a study, much in the vein of this one, where scientists gave test subjects the full U.S. government allowable daily intake of glyphosate regularly for two years. Do you even want to see those results?

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Another Malaria Drug Is Failing to Work

Malaria causes over 400,000 deaths a year.  Ninety-two percent of those deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, although a total of 91 countries still report cases each year. We know that malaria is primarily spread through the Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax species of mosquitos, but recent developments have made it clear that we need to adjust our prevention and treatment of the disease.

Typically, malaria prevention takes the form of insecticides sprayed inside houses and the deployment of nets treated with insecticides. The two most common species of mosquito spreading malaria have different territories. Plasmodium falciparum is concentrated in Africa, and Plasmodium vivax is everywhere else. Plasmodium vivax is already displaying resistance to the most popular antiparasitics, especially in South-East Asia. A team in London is now reporting the first failure of the anti-parasitic drug artemether-lumefantrine contracted from travel in Africa.

Heed the Resistance

More than 1,500 people a year in the U.K. are treated for malaria after foreign travel. The four cases of malaria that resisted the usual treatment were from individuals who traveled to Uganda, Angola, and Liberia. The treatment failures happened from October 2015 to February 2016, and the four patients were eventually treated with other means. Four doesn’t seem like many cases, but those four cases are from over a year ago and reported in a country where malaria is exclusively imported.

Drugs and Drug Combinations are Failing

The World Health Organization recommends that malaria drug regimens be routinely monitored. This is not the first time a treatment for malaria has failed. Another common malaria treatment is artemisinin-based combination therapy, a mix of artemisinin and piperaquine. While malaria has officially shown resistance to artemisinin (a derivative of sweet wormwood) since 2008, the combined use of the drug with piperaquine has yielded results until last year, when Cambodian doctors reported the drug combination had completely failed.

Controlling malaria and the carriers of the disease is becoming more difficult for a variety of reasons, and malaria’s actual drug resistance is not the only uprising occurring. Mosquitos, malaria’s long term carrier and partner-in-crime, are developing a resistance to the pesticides used to reduce their numbers. Mosquito netting sprayed in insecticide is a common prevention strategy, and more nets are being sprayed with two different insecticides. Who knows how long the double dose of insecticide will work, and at what point is the constant exposure to these pesticides considered too harmful for humans?

Running a Rigged Race

Here’s the bottom line: the bacteria and diseases are evolving and we aren’t. In fact, our ability to fight off infection through a strong immune system and a healthy, varied gut environment is going backward.

Scientists see this drug resistance as a warning sign rather than an invitation to panic. But these solutions do not help us to reclaim the microbiome diversity that we need to maintain a strong immune system. Diseases like malaria have already proven that conventional anti-parasitics have a shelf life. We’ve passed the warning sign, but have we hit the brakes yet?

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Lyme Disease Study Presents Stevia as a Potential Treatment

The bacteria that causes Lyme, Borrelia burgdorferi, is tricky to manage. Antibiotics are used to treat it, but according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), they only work for 80-90% of cases. The other 10-20% develop into chronic Lyme, as the bacteria is able to change form and hide in the body. Conventional medicine is still divided as to whether Chronic Lyme actually exists, so it makes sense that they can only offer management solutions instead of actual treatment. Patients increasingly find themselves turning to alternative medicine. A recent study suggests there is yet another treatment available in the alternative arsenal: stevia.

Conventional medicine is still divided as to whether Chronic Lyme actually exists, so it makes sense that they can only offer management solutions instead of actual treatment. Patients increasingly find themselves turning to alternative medicine. A recent study suggests there is yet another treatment available in the alternative arsenal: stevia.

Will the Real Stevia Stand Up?

Stevia is a naturally sweet herb that is more than 100 times sweeter than sugar, but unlike sugar, it doesn’t raise blood sugar levels. Originally from South America, stevia has been around for more than 1,500 years, but it hasn’t gained public popularity until recently. Stevia is incredibly concentrated and doesn’t feed Candida in the body the way other sweeteners do.

The best form of any food, nutritionally, is in its natural state. The pure stevia leaf, whether fresh, dried, or in a tincture, is the best way to use the plant along with all of its flavonoids, sterols, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. But not all stevia is created equal. Many of the widely available stevia powders are bleached and altered with other chemicals and additives like erythritol and dextrose.

It’s the Little Things in Life

The phytonutrients in stevia are powerful. A new study from researchers at the University of New Haven found that stevia leaf extract is more effective at dealing with Lyme disease in all of its forms than any of the currently used antibiotics. The bacteria that causes Lyme disease is a spiral-shaped bacteria, and the common antibiotics used like doxycycline, cefoperazone, and daptomycin can be effective in dealing with the bacteria in that form. Unfortunately, Borrelia burgdorferi can morph into a dormant round body under unfavorable conditions, and in this form, antibiotics are more likely to miss it. In fact, antibiotics increased the bacteria in its dormant form.

Is Stevia is a Better Idea than Antibiotics?

Stevia and antibiotics were both effective against the Borrelia burgdorferi is its spiral form. Stevia reduced the bacteria in its dormant form, whereas the antibiotics increased its resistance to the next antibiotic treatment and may have even helped it to multiple. Antibiotics, even when they work as intended, damage to the body. They suppress the immune system and kill off good bacteria, effectively ridding the body of its natural defenses. Is there really any question as to which treatment is better?

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