In Canada There Is More Autism Where Vaccine Coverage Is Highest
Rates of autism continue to increase worldwide. An estimated 1 in 66 children are in the spectrum (0.0151515152%). Canada reported in March of this year that autism as of 2015 affect 1.52% of youth, putting Canada among the “top ten” for autism among developed nations.
The World Mercury Project reports that there is more autism in regions where vaccine coverage is most prevalent.
What might explain the variation in ASD prevalence within Canada’s borders? … autism prevalence is highest in the Canadian provinces that also have the highest vaccination coverage.”
ASD prevalence by province and territory
NASS gathers data from the health, education, and social services sectors for youth aged 5-17 years who have a confirmed autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis. Six provinces (British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec) and one territory (Yukon) provided the data for 2015. ASD prevalence in 2015 was highest in Newfoundland and Labrador (1 in 57), Prince Edward Island (1 in 59) and Quebec (1 in 65). Prevalence was lower in the Yukon territory (1 in 125). See chart:
Autism prevalence is highest in the Canadian provinces that have the highest vaccination coverage. A 2013 survey, also done by the Public Health Agency of Canada, examined vaccine coverage by province/territory and type of vaccine. Newfoundland/Labrador and Quebec had five to fifteen percent higher vaccination rates than in Yukon.
In the 1980s supermarkets were even more concerned with proper shape and size of produce than they are today. Consumers expected carrots to be a particular size, shape, and color. Anything that didn’t fit the image was sold for juice or processing or animal feed, or often simply thrown away.
There are “true baby carrots” and then there are the processed “baby carrots” we normally see in stores. True baby carrots are just young carrots harvested before the root reaches its mature size. Some say they are sweeter this way. Some even think they’re healthier. These carrots aren’t nearly as common in grocery stores, but when you see them they often still have their stalks. What we typically see labeled as “baby carrots” in those small plastic bags are full grown carrots that would once have been rejected and wasted.
Broken and misshaped carrots that are not pretty enough for consumers were discarded, leaving farmers with as little as 30 percent of their crop to sell. Mike Yurosek was tired of this waste. He took his ugly reject carrots and used a potato peeler to reshape them into small pieces. Yurosek then scaled up with an industrial green bean cutter to quickly whittle the carrots into the well-known sizes we still see today. 1
How Are Baby Carrots Made Today?
The industry calls them “baby cuts.” They are no longer simply rejected carrots. These baby cuts you see in supermarkets come from carrots have been specifically bred to be smaller in diameter, and to be a bright orange without color variation, and they are also raised to have considerably sweeter than regular carrots. 2
These baby carrots are planted closer together than traditional carrots and they are harvested in about 120 days. But before packaging, the carrots are cut and peeled and scrubbed, then they get the infamous chlorine bath. But the amount of chlorine in the water is not really anything to be alarmed about. It’s likely that every time you eat out at a restaurant you will consume more chlorine than when eating baby carrots.
Grimmway Farms uses a chlorine solution on all its carrots — organic and non-organic — to prevent food poisoning, before a final wash in water. Grimmway says the chlorine rinse is well within limits set by the EPA and is comparable to levels found in tap water.” – Fox
The minute amount of chlorine in our water for washing carrots is nearly 90% less than the chlorine level in normal tap (drinking) water.” – The Truth About Baby Carrots
What’s the Concern?
Baby carrots are no longer a byproduct of the carrot industry, so buying baby carrots no longer helps to reduce food waste.
The chlorine is problematic but if you eat out at restaurants, even healthy ones, you’re getting plenty of chlorine in your food. If you shower without water filtration, you’re breathing it in.
The problem is that the food is processed. People think they are getting fresh carrots, but they’re not. The life force energy of the food is gone (the chlorine bath allows the food to last longer, and some may have additional preservatives). The enzymes are done. And the peel, which contains the highest concentration of nutrients, is gone.
Eating baby carrots is eating processed food, but it’s not the worst choice one could make. As poor food choices go, this is probably the best of them. I have been I situations where I was very hungry and the only food choice I saw that would not make me sick were baby carrots, and I have eaten plenty.
But the best carrots for you are unprocessed, unpeeled, un-messed-with carrots. Vitamin C and niacin are most concentrated in the peel. A little more than half of the phytonutrients are found in the peel. 3
Five Random Carrot Facts
Carrots come in orange, white, yellow, red, and purple
Cultivated carrots are usually about 88% water, 7% sugar, 1% protein, 1% fibre, 1% ash, and 0.2% fat
The world’s largest carrot producer is China, accounting for over 45% of the global output
The voice of cartoon character Bugs Bunny reportedly did not like carrots
Florida Bill 1558 Would Make HPV Vaccine Mandatory for School Children
Florida has introduced Senate Bill 1558, legislature that would make the HPV vaccine mandatory for public school children. The bill would mimic similar vaccine mandate laws in Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington D.C.
Florida’s HPV vaccine rates are lower than the rest of the country. Sen. José Javier Rodríguez (Dem) introduced this bill on January 4th. If it’s passed the bill is said to be titled “Women’s Cancer Prevention Act”. It would begin taking effect July 1st of 2018.
Review of HPV Vaccine Trials Conclude Effectiveness Is Still Unproven
Last year, a systematic review10 of pre- and post-licensure trials of the HPV vaccine by researchers at University of British Columbia showed that the vaccine’s effectiveness is not only overstated (through the use of selective reporting or “cherry picking” data) but also unproven. In the summary of the clinical trial review, the authors state it quite clearly:
“We carried out a systematic review of HPV vaccine pre- and post-licensure trials to assess the evidence of their effectiveness and safety. We found that HPV vaccine clinical trials design, and data interpretation of both efficacy and safety outcomes, were largely inadequate. Additionally, we note evidence of selective reporting of results from clinical trials(i.e., exclusion of vaccine efficacy figures related to study subgroups in which efficacy might be lower or even negative from peer-reviewed publications).
Given this, the widespread optimism regarding HPV vaccines long-term benefits appears to rest on a number of unproven assumptions (or such which are at odds with factual evidence) and significant misinterpretation of available data.
For example, the claim that HPV vaccination will result in approximately 70% reduction of cervical cancers is made despite the fact that the clinical trials data have not demonstrated to date that the vaccines have actually prevented a single case of cervical cancer(let alone cervical cancer death), nor that the current overly optimistic surrogate marker-based extrapolations are justified.
Likewise, the notion that HPV vaccines have an impressive safety profile is only supported by highly flawed design of safety trials and is contrary to accumulating evidence from vaccine safety surveillance databases and case reports which continue to link HPV vaccination to serious adverse outcomes (including death and permanent disabilities).
Being Outdoors Improves Children’s Ability to Learn
A study recently published in the academic journal, Frontiers in Psychology, found that teaching a lesson to children outside allowed teachers to retain the attention of the kids for almost twice compared to a subsequent indoor lesson.
We wanted to see if we could put the nature effect to work in a school setting. If you took a bunch of squirmy third-graders outdoors for lessons, would they show a benefit of having a lesson in nature, or would they just be bouncing off the walls afterward?” – Ming Kuo, lead study author
The study was conducted over a 10-week period in a Midwestern elementary school. Two third-grade classrooms participated. One of the classrooms had a teacher who was enthusiastic about the concept while the other teacher who was skeptical, thinking like many do that there would be too many distractions. Each teacher held one lesson a week outside before returning to their regular classroom setting.
The outdoor classroom was a grassy spot just outside the school, within view of a wooded area. Following the outdoor lesson, class engagement was assessed in four ways: the teacher’s perception of the students’ level of engagements; the students’ ratings of theirs and their classmates’ engagement; the number of ‘redirects’ during the lesson, when teachers had to call the kids’ attention back to the lesson; and independent photo ratings, where ratings of classroom engagement by an independent observer were based on photos of the observation period.” – TreeHugger
What was the effect of lessons outside regarding classroom engagement? Does outdoor learning leave pupils too excited to focus? In this study, classroom engagement was improved after lessons in nature. The advantage of the time outside held true for “four of five measures of classroom engagement.”
We found higher levels of classroom engagement after lessons in nature than after carefully matched classroom-based counterparts; these differences could not be explained by differences in teacher, instructional approach, class (students, classroom, and class size), time of year, or time of day, nor the order of the indoor and outdoor lessons on a given topic. It would seem that lessons in nature boost subsequent classroom engagement, and boost it a great deal; after a lesson in nature, teachers were able to teach for almost twice as long without having to interrupt instruction to redirect students’ attention. This nature advantage persisted across 10 different weeks and lesson topics, and held not only for a teacher with positive expectations for nature-based lessons but also for a teacher who anticipated negative effects of such lessons. The findings here suggest that lessons in nature allow students to simultaneously learn classroom curriculum while rejuvenating their capacity for learning, or “refuel in flight.” Because providing children with more contact with nature in the course of the school day is likely to yield a whole host of additional dividends as well, including improved physical and mental health (see Chawla, 2015 for review), the findings here argue for including more lessons in nature in formal education.
This video takes things a step further, check it out!
Study ranks Wealthiest Countries on Childhood Mortality – U.S. Ranks Last
United States children are 70 percent to die before adulthood than kids born into modern, wealthy democratic countries, according to the new Health Affairs study.
The research indicates that since 1961, more than 600,000 children would have been saved by having been born in another wealthy country.
In all the wealthy, democratic countries we studied children are dying less often then they were 50 years ago. But we found that children are dying more often in the United States than in any similar country.” – Ashish Thakrar, the study’s lead author
It really seems to be the impact of our fragmented health care system,” Thakrar says. “Mothers who are qualifying for Medicaid for the first time because they’re mothers might be seeing doctors for the first time. They might not have a family physician, or a clear support system.”
Between 2001 and 2010, researchers found a 76 percent increased of death for infants in the U.S. compared to 19 peer countries. The US also maintains an infant death rate from extreme prematurity three times that of its peer countries. Read more at Vox.com
The United States Department of Agriculture has rolled back several healthy school lunch requirements. These changes include allowing schools to serve flavored milk, opt out of whole grain requirements, and more slowly reduce the sodium in their offerings. In the USDA’s press release, Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, cited their reasons for the changes, “Based on the feedback we’ve gotten from students, schools, and food service professionals in local schools across America, it’s clear that many still face challenges incorporating some of the meal pattern requirements. Schools want to offer food that students actually want to eat. It doesn’t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can. These flexibilities give schools the local control they need to provide nutritious meals that school children find appetizing.”
Many of the issues cited by the USDA as problematic for school lunch providers are not actually a problem. A statement released by Center for Science in the Public Interest Vice President for Nutrition Margo G. Wootan:
Virtually 100 percent of schools are already complying with the final nutrition standards, including the first phase of sodium reduction…Nine out of 10 school-aged children are eating too much salt, which is why reducing sodium levels in school meals is so important. The USDA should be doubling down on helping schools reduce sodium, not slowing down progress, as the Trump administration proposed today.”
Diet is the foundation of health, and it’s fitting that the government making it easier to serve schoolchildren less nutritious lunches is also the administration dismantling the current healthcare system without a viable system to take its place. The USDA considers the school lunch program a part of its nutrition safety net. So why is it making it easier for vulnerable school children to eat poorly?
Nutrition Education and Healthy Choices
Today, one in five children between the ages of 6-19 is obese, and that number has tripled since the 1970s. More than one-third of Americans are obese. The healthcare costs for an obese person are nearly $1,500 higher for an obese person than a normal weight person. Our health nationwide is not improving because we are failing to properly educate kids about healthy food and healthy lifestyle choices. Only one in ten Americans eat enough vegetables. Combine that with a nutrition safety net willing to compromise health standards out of concern with program operators, school nutrition professionals, industry, and other stakeholders. It’s no wonder kids don’t know how important healthy food choices are, let alone how to make them.
One Million Receive Faulty Dengvaxia Vaccine Which May Cause Dengue Rather Than Prevent it
The Philippines’ Department of Health launched the world’s first public dengue immunization drive last year to the tune of $69.54 million. Dengvaxia is the vaccine used, produced by Sanofi. On Dec 1st, the Department of Health halted the use of Dengvaxia. Sanofi said the vaccine should not have been used. Nearly 734,000 children aged 9 and over in the Philippines have received the vaccine.
As far as we know, as far as we are made aware, there are no reported deaths that are related to dengue vaccination…
Sanofi said the vaccine should only be used on individuals previously infected with dengue, due to evidence it can worsen the disease in people not previously exposed to the infection.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dengue is a mosquito-borne “pandemic-prone viral disease” and can produce severe flu-like symptoms, breathing problems, hemorrhaging, and organ failure. WHO says that about half the world’s population is at risk of dengue, and estimates indicate nearly 400 million are infected every year. Dengue is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in many Asian and Latin American countries. The global incidence of dengue has risen dramatically in recent decades, according to WHO.
…but the World Health Organization issued a report in mid-2016 that identified the risk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdlDqd9WAd8
What We Know
Sanofi’s Dengvaxia is the first-ever approved vaccine for dengue. The company says the vaccine is also registered in Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Singapore, Thailand, and Venezuela. The vaccine has also been used in a public immunization program in Brazil, which makes a total of around one million people who have had a dose of the drug.
Sanofi explained “new findings” at a news conference in Manila, but the World Health Organization issued a report in mid-2016 that identified the risk. A non-governmental organization said it had received information that three children died who were vaccinated with Dengvaxia, and a senator said he was aware of two other cases. The Department of Health Undersecretary Gerardo Bayugo told Reuters that the three children referenced died due to causes not related to the vaccine, and Sanofi claims that no deaths have been attributed to the program.
For those not previously infected by dengue virus, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection,” – Sanofi
The WHO now recommends that Dengvaxia is only to be administered to subjects “known to have been infected with dengue prior to vaccination,” pending a full review of the study.
As far as we know, as far as we are made aware, there are no reported deaths that are related to dengue vaccination.” – Ruby Dizon, Sanofi’s Medical Director
What’s Being Done?
The Philippines ordered a probe on Monday into the immunization program, and the program was suspended on Friday, December 1st. According to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, further information will be released on Dec. 12 or 13 by the WHO advisory body, Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization.
