Arsenic found in 11 bottled water brands According to Consumer Reports

Even though bottled water consumption causes massive environmental issues, consumers bought more than 391 billion liters of bottled water in 2017 (103 billion gallons). Bottled water sales have been on a steep rise for more than a decade with little signs of slowing down. The International Bottled Water Association says nation’s bottled water is the best selling bottled beverage in America. This is likely due to consumer concerns regarding the quality of tap water. And we should be concerned. Flint’s water still isn’t safe, and the EPA lied to Flint residents. But Flint’s not the only one:

If you live in the United States, there is a nearly one-in-four chance your tap water is either unsafe to drink or has not been properly monitored for contaminants in accordance with federal law, a new study has found.

America’s Tap Water: Too Much Contamination, Not Enough Reporting

Related:

Many people who are concerned with the environment love to tell us that tap water is perfectly safe and tastes just as good, and that buying bottled water is foolish. This is obviously nonsense. But some brands of bottled water aren’t safe either.

Consumer Reports looked at 130 bottled water brands and found 11 contained detectable arsenic levels.

High levels of arsenic in groundwater have been shown to cause cancer and other environmental illnesses. The federal standards set for allowable level for arsenic in drinking water is 10 parts per billion, and none of the brands exceeded this threshold. But research suggests that 3 parts per billion are likely to be dangerous to consume regularly. Regular consumption of even lower levels of arsenic over extended periods may lead to cardiovascular disease, cancers, and may lower IQ scores in children.

The investigation showed that some bottled water has more arsenic than tap most water municipals.

For this report, CR tracked down and reviewed hundreds of public records and test reports from bottled water brands, and from various federal and state regulators. We found that several popular brands sell bottled water with arsenic levels at or above 3 ppb; current research suggests that amounts above that level are potentially dangerous to drink over extended periods of time. CR believes the federal limit for bottled water should be revised to 3 ppb from the current federal standard of 10 ppb.

Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports says that Starkey (owned by Whole Foods), Peñafiel (owned by Keurig Dr Pepper), Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water, Volvic (owned by Danone), and Crystal Creamery and EartH₂0 showed arsenic levels of 3 ppb or higher.

It makes no sense that consumers can purchase bottled water that is less safe than tap water. If anything, bottled water—a product for which people pay a premium, often because they assume it’s safer—should be regulated at least as strictly as tap water.”

James Dickerson, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Consumer Reports.

Related: What’s the Best Water for Detoxifying and For Drinking?

The good news for bottled water consumers is that Consumer Report also found dozens of bottled water brands that showed no detectable levels of arsenic.

Check out Arsenic in Some Bottled Water Brands at Unsafe Levels, Consumer Reports Says for more information.



Trump Comes out As Pro-Vaccine – Says We All Need To Get Measles Shot

Today U.S. President Donald Trump on urged Americans to get the measles vaccination.

“The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They have to get their shots.”

Nearly 700 cases have been confirmed by federal health officials as of this week in a resurgence that has been concentrated in a handful of states — New York, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, and California — although 22 states in all are affected. Measles can cause severe complications or death.

So far, no U.S. fatalities have been reported.

Reuters

USA Today just published an article worth reading, Why Big Pharma distrust is fueling the anti-vaxxer movement and playing a role in the measles outbreak

We’d like to take a moment to remind our readers of the one Candidate big pharma is most scared of. Bernie Sanders. He doesn’t take corporate money. He talks about reining in big pharma all the time. He hasn’t come out against vaccines but we have to get the money out of politics and some of the corruption out of the pharmaceutical industry first.

Recommended:


First Major Pharmaceutical Company, Former Executives, Charged Criminally For Opioid Scandal

New York City indicted Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Laurence Doud III, and William Pietruszewski, on Tuesday. Doud is the retired CEO of the Rochester Drug Co-Operative. William Pietruszewski is the company’s former chief of compliance. NPR reports they are being charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled narcotics — oxycodone and fentanyl — for non-medical reasons and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The Rochester company and Pietruszewski are also charged failing to file suspicious order reports to the DEA.

Though Rochester Drug Co-Operative Inc. is one of the nation’s 10 largest pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S. But the company is small compared to the big players in the opioid scandal like Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and Johnson & Johnson.

Laurence Doud III was the CEO of the company and retired in 2017. Doud is being accused of encouraging his sales staff to bring in new customers with no questions asked, supplying pharmacies that the company knew were “illegally dispensing narcotics.”

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut 

When Rochester’s largest customer went from buying 70,000 units of oxycodone per month in October 2012 to more than 200,000 units per month a year later, Doud had its back — overruling his own compliance officers and ordering that the pills keep flowing because it was a ‘big account,’ the indictment said.”

Fox 8 Cleveland

Doud is awaiting arraignment on two counts of conspiracy related to drug trafficking. His lawyer says Doud will be fighting the charges. Doud sued Rochester Drug Co-Operative last year claiming that the company was attempting to use him as a scapegoat for the regulatory tissues.

Recommended: Top Three Meat Producers Issue Multiple Recalls For Beef, Chicken Due to Metal, Plastic, Rubber, Wood Contamination

Between May 2012 and November 2016, the company received and filled over 1.5 million orders for controlled substances from its pharmacy customers. However, it reported only four suspicious orders to the DEA. According to the complaint, the company failed to report at least 2,000 suspicious orders.”

NPR

This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking, trafficking the same drugs that are fueling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging this country. Our Office will do everything in its power to combat this epidemic, from street-level dealers to the executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.”

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman

Related:


Young Cancer Patients Often Regret Initial Treatment Decisions

A small study reported that nearly one in four teens and young adults express regret about the initial treatment decisions made.

Researchers surveyed 203 cancer patients, ages 15 to 29, within six weeks of their diagnosis to ask about their decision-making preferences and experiences. They checked back with these young patients again after four months and one year to see if their feelings about treatment decisions changed over time.

Reuters

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut 

The study reports that 58 percent of the patients wanted to be involved in deciding their treatment plan, and 51 percent wanted limited involvement from parents. The survey also reported that 24 percent regretted the treatment decisions they choose.

Source:


Top Three Meat Producers Issue Multiple Recalls For Beef, Chicken Due to Metal, Plastic, Rubber, Wood Contamination

On January 30th Tyson recalled 36,420 pounds of chicken nuggets due to potential rubber contamination.

A recall on 5-pound bags of “Tyson WHITE MEAT PANKO CHICKEN NUGGETS” that were produced on Nov. 26, 2018 and have a use-by date of Nov. 26, 2019 was issued after consumers complained of “extraneous material, specifically rubber” in the product, according to the press release.

Time

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp is owned by JBS S.A., a Brazillian company, which is the largest meat producer in the world. They also recalled about 60,000 pounds of chicken products due to possible rubber contamination.

The problem was discovered on Jan. 30, 2019 when the company was informed by Publix Super Markets’ employees about a consumer complaint regarding white rubber in the products.

USDA

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

On March 22 Tyson Foods recalled approximately 69,000 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat chicken strips due to potential metal contamination.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said here late Thursday it had received two consumer complaints of extraneous material in Tyson’s chicken strips and that there were no reports of illnesses.

Tyson is recalling all its fully cooked buffalo-style chicken strip fritters, crispy chicken strips and chicken breast strip fritters, which have a use-before date of Nov. 30, 2019.

Reuters

On April 3 Tyson Foods recalled about 20,000 pounds of ready-to-eat beef patties due to plastic contamination.

A Tyson unit, AdvancePierre Foods, is recalling ‘fully cooked flame-broiled beef patties’ after two consumers complained about soft purple plastic in the product, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service said the USDA on Tuesday.

The USDA categorized the recall as ‘Class II’, which indicates a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product.

Reuters

Perdue Foods, reportedly the third-largest American producer of broilers (chickens raised for human consumption) has had a couple of recalls of its own.

Must Read: How To Heal Your Gut 

On January 17th Perdue Foods LLC recalled their “Simplysmart Organics Gluten Free Chicken Nugget Products” because of potential “foreign matter contamination.”

The problem was discovered when the firm received three consumer complaints that wood was found in the product.

USDA

Then slightly more than a week later on Jan. 28, Perdue recalled more than 16,000 pounds of “Refrigerated Fun Shapes Chicken Breast Nuggets” due to “misbranding and undeclared allergens.”

Perdue Foods, LLC, a Bridgewater, Va. establishment, is recalling approximately 16,011 pounds of ready-to-eat (RTE) chicken nugget products due to misbranding and undeclared allergens, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The products contain milk, a known allergen, which is not declared on the product label.

USDA

That’s three recalls in four months so far this year for Tyson Foods, the world’s second largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork. And that’s one recall by JBS S.A., a Brazillian company, the largest meat producer in the world. And there are two recalls for Perdue Foods, the third largest broiler chicken producer.

Tyson and Perdue are also known for poor treatment of their animals:



Restaurant Dishes Labeled Gluten-free Are Not Necessarily Gluten-free

Researchers report in the American Journal of Gastroenterology that more than half of gluten-free pizza and pasta dishes in restaurants that were tested contained gluten.

Most who suffer from a gluten-related autoimmune disease know that just a tiny amount of gluten can cause an autoimmune reaction. It doesn’t take much.

The long-suspected problem of gluten contamination in restaurant foods that has been reported by patients likely has some truth behind it. We don’t know how common it is. But our findings suggest that pizza and pasta and foods served during dinner time are more likely to have this problem.”

Senior study author Dr. Benjamin Lebwohl, director of clinical research at the Celiac Disease Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Lebwohl learned the company that makes the portable Nima Gluten Sensor held the data submitted by restaurant patrons who used the device to test their foods for gluten contamination.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Lebwohl asked the company if he could use the data for a study and the company gave him the data on 5,624 food tests performed by 804 app users during an 18-month period.

Researchers analyzed the data and discovered gluten-free pasta samples were positive for the protein in 50.8 percent of tests, while gluten-free pizza turned out to contain gluten in 53.2 percent of tests. Gluten was detected in 27.2 percent of breakfasts, 29 percent of lunches and 34 percent of dinners.

Lebwohl says there are limitations to the dataset.

The people tested what they wanted to test. And the users chose which results to upload to the company. They may have uploaded the results that surprised them the most. So, our findings don’t mean that 32 percent of foods are unsafe.”

Lebwohl also pointed out that the Nima sensor is extremely sensitive. In the United States food that’s labeled gluten-free must contain less than 20 parts per million. The Nima sensor will detect levels down to 5 parts per million, which Lebwohl says isn’t enough for most to consider clinically significant.

Related: How To Heal Your Gut 

Lebwohl says that gluten-free foods may be inadvertently contaminated.

If a gluten-free pizza is put in an oven with a gluten-containing pizza, aerosolized particles could come in contact with the gluten-free pizza. And it’s possible that cooking gluten-free pasta in a pot of water that had just been used for pasta that contained gluten might result in contamination.”

Lebwhol says that the solution may be to educate the restaurant workers who prepare food.

My Personal Experience In The Restaurant Industry

I worked in a the restaurant industry as a server during this magazine’s initial years. The restaurant was a well-known 24-hour restaurant in Atlanta with a menu that had lots of healthier items to choose from, like the “Raw Food Dinner #2” and the gluten free pasta.

My mom has celiac disease. I knew how little gluten it took to set her autoimmune system off. We regularly got customers in the restaurant who requested the gluten free pasta. I would ask them, “How important is it that gluten come no where near your food?” Most would say it’s not that big of a deal, but many would let me know that they believed that even a tiny amount would cause them severe pain for days. In those cases, I had to time it just right to be there in the kitchen as the dish was in it’s the final stage of being prepared. Every time the kitchen made pasta it was habitual to put garlic bread in the bowl, on top of the pasta. It was reflexive. When the ticket said gluten-free they usually realized it after the fact and would consequently yank the bread off, but that bread had already touched the dish, and usually the pasta as well. The first time it happened I told the manager the dish needed to be remade, he refused, and we got into an argument about it. He relented, but he and the kitchen were pissed, which meant I had to stay in the kitchen the whole time to make sure they didn’t do something nasty to the food.

I also taught the kitchen to wash their hands or change their gloves (not all of them worse gloves) when they got a gluten free order. This irritated them, but I had some pull thanks to this website.

After the first gluten-free gluten incident, I paid attention and noticed the habit of putting the bread on the dish and then quickly pulling it off. They would even scan the area with a guilty look on their face to see if I saw them do it. From that point on, when I had a customer order the gluten-free pasta who said they could not tolerate any gluten I would be right there in the kitchen ready to yell at just the right time, “No bread!”

By the way, I’ve worked in about a dozen restaurants. These attitudes towards the customers are commonplace. If you eat out, don’t piss off the kitchen!



New York Declares Measles Emergency – Now Requiring Vaccinations or $1,000 Fine

In parts of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency Tuesday following a measles outbreak. The outbreak is reportedly affecting the Orthodox Jewish community. The media and public officials say the outbreak is due to a growing movement against vaccinations.

Last week, the city ordered religious schools and day care programs in the affected communities to exclude unvaccinated students or risk being shut down.

The City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is expected to check vaccination records of people who may have been in contact with infected patients. The mayor said the city would issue violations with potential fines of $1,000 for those who don’t get vaccinated.

The order applies to anyone who is working, living, or going to school in the ZIP codes of the neighborhood of the outbreak. The order requires unvaccinated people of the areas to get the vaccine. The order also applies to children more than six months old.

The city can’t legally force anyone to get vaccinated but officials say they can impose the $1,000 fine for those who choose not to vaccinate.

If people will simply cooperate quickly, nobody will have to pay a fine.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio

Dr. Oxiris Barbot is the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She blames the outbreak on “a small group of anti-vaxxers” in the targeted neighborhoods. The commissioner is empowered by law to issue such orders in cases when they might be necessary to protect against a serious public health threat.

They have been spreading dangerous misinformation based on fake science. We stand with the majority of people in this community who have worked hard to protect their children and those at risk.”

Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot

This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately. The measles vaccine works. It is safe, it is effective, it is time-tested.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio

News reports say that the measles virus was introduced into the community by a person who contracted the disease in Israel, which is said to also be dealing with a measles outbreak.

There are two measles-containing vaccines used in the United States. We have the MMRII by Merek which is a live virus combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. We also have the ProQuad option also produced and distributed by Merck, which is a live virus combination measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMR-V) vaccine. Both products are produced and distributed by Merck.

Merek says both vaccines are safe to be given to children of age one year or older, but the New York order includes children six months or older to be vaccinated.

The World Health Organization says more than 110,000 people, mostly children, died of measles worldwide in 2017. The last recorded death in the United States from measles was in 2015.

We cannot find vaccine damage statistics at this time. Septics say they are grossly underreported, but the damage and death statistics are not made public. According to the CDC, from 2006 to 2017 more than 3.4 billion doses of vaccines were distributed in the U.S.  Of the petitions filed within 2006 to 2017, 6,253 petitions were adjudicated by the vaccine Courts, with 4,291 compensated.

Related:

From the National Vaccine Information Center: Can Measles Vaccine Cause Injury & Death?

Serious complications reported by Merck in the ProQuad(MMR-V) product insert during vaccine post-marketing surveillance include6:

  • measles;
  • atypical measles;
  • vaccine strain varicella;
  • varicella-like rash;
  • herpes zoster;
  • herpes simplex;
  • pneumonia and respiratory infection;
  • pneumonitis;
  • bronchitis;
  • epididymitis;
  • cellulitis;
  • skin infection;
  • subacute sclerosing panencephalitis;
  • aseptic meningitis;
  • thrombocytopenia;
  • aplastic anemia (anemia due to the bone marrow’s inability to produce platelets, red and white blood cells);
  • lymphadenitis (inflammation of the lymph nodes);
  • anaphylaxis including related symptoms of peripheral, angioneurotic and facial edema;
  • agitation;
  • ocular palsies;
  • necrotizing retinitis (inflammation of the eye);
  • nerve deafness;
  • optic and retrobulbar neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve);
  • Bell’s palsy (sudden but temporary weakness of one half of the face);
  • cerebrovascular accident (stroke);
  • acute disseminated encephalomyelitis;
  • measles inclusion body encephalitis;
  • transverse myelitis;
  • encephalopathy;
  • Guillain-Barré syndrome;
  • syncope (fainting);
  • tremor;
  • dizziness;
  • paraesthesia;
  • febrile seizure;
  • afebrile seizures or convulsions;
  • polyneuropathy (dysfunction of numerous peripheral nerves of the body);
  • Stevens-Johnson syndrome;
  • Henoch-Schönlein purpura;
  • acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy;
  • erythema multiforme;
  • panniculitis;
  • arthritis;
  • death

Serious complications reported by Merck in the MMRII product insert during vaccine post-marketing surveillance include9:

  • brain inflammation (encephalitis) and encephalopathy (chronic brain dysfunction);
  • panniculitis (inflammation of the fat layer under the skin);
  • atypical measles;
  • syncope (sudden loss of consciousness, fainting);
  • vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels);
  • pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas);
  • diabetes mellitus;
  • thrombocytopenia  purpura (blood disorder);
  • Henoch-Schönlein purpura (inflammation and bleeding in the small blood vessels);
  • acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy (rare vasculitis of the skin’s small vessels occurring in infants);
  • leukocytosis (high white blood cell count);
  • anaphylaxis (shock);
  • bronchial spasms;
  • pneumonia;
  • pneumonitis(inflammation of the lung tissues);
  • arthritis and arthralgia (joint pain);
  • myalgia (muscle pain);
  • polyneuritis (inflammation of several nerves simultaneously);
  • measles inclusion body encephalitis (a disease affecting the brain of immunocompromised persons);
  • subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (a fatal progressive brain disorder caused by exposure to the measles virus);
  • Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) (a disease where the body’s immune system attacks the nerves);
  • acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) (brief widespread inflammation of the nerve’s protective covering);
  • transverse myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord);
  • aseptic meningitis;
  • erythema multiforme (skin disorder from an allergic reaction or infection);
  • urticarial rash (hives, itching from an allergic reaction);
  • measles-like rash;
  • Stevens-Johnson syndrome (severe reaction causing the skin and mucous membranes to blister, die, and shed);
  • nerve deafness (hearing loss from damage to the inner ear);
  • otitis media (ear infection);
  • retinitis (inflammation of the retina of the eye);
  • optic neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve);
  • conjunctivitis (pink eye);
  • ocular palsies (dysfunction of the ocular nerve);
  • epididymitis (inflammation of the epididymis);
  • paresthesia (burning or prickling of the skin);
  • death.