The Detox Project is a research organization bringing awareness to the public by testing for man-made chemicals in our bodies and in our food. The project gives consumers an accurate report on the levels of glyphosate in their urine.
Through this unique public testing project carried out by a laboratory at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), glyphosate was discovered in 93% of urine samples during the early phase of the testing in 2015. The urine and water testing was organized by The Detox Project and commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association.
The project has provided more urine samples for testing than any other glyphosate bio-monitoring urine study ever in America. It was supported by members of the public, who themselves paid for their urine and water samples to be analyzed for glyphosate residues by the UCSF lab.
The data released in a presentation by the UCSF lab only covers the first 131 people tested. Further data from this public bio-monitoring study, which is now completed, will be released later in 2016.
Later this year, The Detox Project will be working alongside a new, larger lab to enable the public to once again test their urine for glyphosate residues. The Detox Project is also researching whether or not an organic diet has an effect on the level of man-made chemicals in our bodies. They’re not just testing for glyphosates either, they are also testing for 150+ man-made chemicals.
The Results
Glyphosate was found in 93% of the 131 urine samples tested at an average level of 3.096 parts per billion (PPB). Children had the highest levels with an average of 3.586 PPB.
The regions with the highest levels were the West and the Midwest with an average of 3.053 PPB and 3.050 PPB respectively.
Glyphosate residues were not observed in any tap water samples during the early phase of the project, most likely due to phosphorus removal during water treatment.
The Method
Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine ) is directly analyzed using liquid chromatography- tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Water and urine samples are prepared for analysis by solid phase extraction using an ion exchange column. Extracted samples are injected to the LC-MS/MS and the analyte is separated using an Obelisc N column (SIELC Technologies, Prospect Heights, IL) through isocratic elution. Ionization of glyphosate is achieved using an electrospray ionization source operated in negative polarity. The analyte is detected by multiple reaction monitoring using a 13C-labelled glyphosate as the internal standard. Quantification of the analyte is done by isotope dilution method using an eight-point calibration curve.
The assay has a limit of quantification of 0.5 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precision observed are 6-15% in concentrations that range 0.5-80 ng/mL. Recoveries for glyphosate range 70-80% at concentrations within the assay’s linear dynamic range.
Glyphosate and Health Concerns
Glyphosate-containing herbicides are sold under trademarks including Monsanto’s “Roundup”. Glyphosate was labeled a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC in 2015. The European Union is currently putting restrictions on the use of glyphosate due to health concerns.
Glyphosate has never been studied at the level of exposure that we in the U.S. are currently being subjected to (under 3 mg/kg body weight/day). Industry-funded science many years ago suggested that lower exposure is likely safe, but that more exposure could prove to be dangerous. Modern independent science has discovered that many toxic chemicals can have major effects on our endocrine system, sometimes at very low doses. Interestingly enough, due to the nature of endocrine disrupters, there’s often a “sweet spot”, where less or more exposure would be more damaging to health. These chemicals are known as hormone disruptors, or endocrine disruptors.
A study from March 2015 stated that the health cost to the European Union of only a few of these endocrine disrupting chemicals is over EUR 150 Billion per year. The same report also said that lower IQs, adult obesity, and potentially 5% or more of autism cases may be linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors like glyphosate.
“With increasing evidence from laboratory studies showing that glyphosate-based herbicides can result in a wide range of chronic illnesses through multiple mechanisms, it has become imperative to ascertain the levels of glyphosate in food and in as large a section of the human population as possible. Thus, the information gathered by the glyphosate public testing service being offered by The Detox Project is most timely and will provide invaluable information for the consumer and scientists like myself evaluating the toxicity of real world levels of exposure to this most widely used pesticide.”
These results show that both the U.S. regulators have let down consumers in America. Independent science shows that glyphosate may be a hormone hacker at these real-life exposure levels found in the food products. The safe level of glyphosate ingestion is simply unknown despite what the EPA and Monsanto would have everyone believe.” – Henry Rowlands, Director, The Detox Project
If consumers had any doubt about the extent to which they are being poisoned by Monsanto’s Roundup, these tests results should put those doubts to rest,” – Ronnie Cummins, International Director of Organic Consumers Association
It’s interesting to note that the testing is on a volunteer bases, and some speculate that people getting tested are more likely than the general public to purchase organic foods and avoid GMOs.
How to Avoid and Detox Endocrine Disruptors
The most common endocrine disruptors we are likely to have in our bodies include Bisphenol–A, AKA BPAs, Phthalates (added to plastics to make them softer and last longer), Parabens, PBDE’s (found in flame retardants) PCB’s, Dioxin: (an unintentional by-product of many industrial processes), pesticides and herbicides, and heavy metals. It’s a scary list, and there’s obviously many more chemicals we haven’t heard about yet.
The good news is that studies have shown that fresh, raw, organic vegetables detox the body of all of these toxins. It’s becoming more and more imperative that we grow our own food and buy unpackaged, unprocessed food to prepare at home. Get gardening and get detoxing if you’re not already. See the recommended reading list below for more on this.
Conclusion
If you’re ready to send in a sample, unfortunately, the project was put on hold. Due to the enormous interest, they had to temporarily stop the urine and water testing program until they are working with a much larger lab, which is supposed to begin in “summer, 2016.” You can sign up if you’re interested at The Detox Project here.
Not all medical professionals support vaccination. Some nurses are bold enough to publicly question their safety for some time now. This is bad for Big Pharma’s image. Masters of the game, the pharmaceutical industry has pushed for vaccine mandates on all hospital workers, nurses included and they have been lobbying for laws like these under an all too familiar guise, for the betterment of all, for the “greater good.”
Vaccine mandates nearly guarantee that those who are skeptical of vaccines don’t pursue a career in medicine. Many nurses have lost their jobs for speaking out against vaccines, which has backed them into a corner and made many of them feel like they have nothing left to lose. Most nurses choose to criticize vaccines under the guise of anonymity. As long as their identity is protected and reprisals are all but impossible. Freedom of speech is how these nurses are fighting to restore our medical freedoms. In the information age, censorship is more difficult for Big Pharma than it ever has been before. The world is waking up.
From all walks of life, here are the stories from those brave enough to speak out. Hear from the nurses against vaccines.
Patriot Nurse
In the time I was at my educational institution there was very little discussion, true discussion, and even less true debate, on the subject of vaccination, on the true science of vaccination and on real risks and possible perceived benefits of vaccination. So I had to search out the information, the studies, the data for myself and in an effort to find the truth, I have come to the conclusion that I am against vaccination, especially for children and infants under the age of 2. I have three main areas of objection. We could spend hours talking about this
…my areas of objection are the additives that are present in the vaccines, the vaccination schedule for children, especially under the age of one, and the sufficiency of breast milk for conferred immunity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZlTfzAw6Ak
Guerilla RN
As an E.R. nurse, I have seen the cover up. Where do you think kids go when they have a vaccine reaction? They go to the E.R. They come to me.
…The cases almost always present similarly, and often no one else connected it. The child comes in with either a fever approaching 105, or seizures, or lethargy/can’t wake up, or sudden overwhelming sickness, screaming that won’t stop, spasms, GI inclusion, etc.
And one of the first questions I would ask, as triage nurse, was are they current on their vaccinations? It’s a safe question that nobody sees coming, and nobody understands the true impact of. Parents (and co-workers) usually just think I’m trying to rule out the vaccine-preventable diseases, when in fact, I am looking to see how recently they were vaccinated to determine if this is a vaccine reaction.
Too often I heard a parent say something akin to “Yes they are current, the pediatrician caught up their vaccines this morning during their check-up, and the pediatrician said they were in perfect health!”
If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that I could fly to Europe for free.
But here’s the more disturbing part.
Mind you, I have served in multiple hospitals across multiple states, alongside probably well over a hundred doctors and probably 300-400+ nurses.
…I have even made a point of sitting in the most prominent spot at the nurse’s station filling out a VAERS report to make sure as many people saw me doing it as possible to generate the expected “What are you doing?” responses to get that dialog going with people.
And in every case, if a nurse approached me, their response was “I’ve never done that!” or “I didn’t know we could do that,” or, worse “What is VAERS?” which was actually the most common response. The response from doctors? Silence. Absolute total refusal to engage in discussion or to even acknowledge what I was doing or what VAERS was.
The big take away from that?
The number one place parents bring their kids in the event of a vaccine reaction is the E.R., and as an E.R. staffer, I have NEVER met anyone who filed one, in spite of seeing hundreds of cases of obvious vaccine-associated harm come through.
What does that say about reported numbers?
The CDC/HHS admits that VAERS is under-reported
…In an industry that is rocked on a monthly basis by horrible medication scandals, if you didn’t question everything they told you, I would look at you funny. And it’s my job to give these medications to people.
Just to note, on a recent scandal, I have been warning people about Zofran use in pregnancy for 5 years. The information was right there in the insert. It was right there on the manufacturing website. It was right there in the PDR. As well as on every downloadable app and printed IV drug book.
The information is there.
It is the medical professionals that are failing the general public.
…Everything I’m saying is public domain knowledge. It’s stuff we SHOULD be telling you.I am sorry we are not. I try to take a stand where I can, but at the end of the day, I’m only one nurse.
Matt Smith, RN
After being on the vaccine team for one day and seeing children get sick after receiving their vaccine, I came home exhausted and turned on TV and I happened to catch the Larry King Show and he had a story and it aired. I think it was November 2nd, 2009 where he did a story about 19 deaths caused by the vaccine, and it was a vaccine that I was giving out that day.
In response, I sent out an email to all my co-workers saying, “Hey, watch this report,” because I felt it was my responsibility to inform that what’s going on and they might be giving a shot that could kill somebody.
…Basically, they said, “Shut up, you’re fired. Stop using email,” and they sent me a confidentiality agreement threatening federal prosecution and that pretty much scared me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj6ZKVeQ8hU
Michelle Rowton, MSN, RNC-NIC, C-NPT, NNP-BP
Well, I had mentioned that they go ahead and vaccinate premature infants on time, meaning that once they are two months old, they are ready for their two month vaccines regardless of the fact they are supposed to have been inside their mothers’ stomachs and not even born yet, and some of the things we’re seeing and that are being said is like a neonatologist calling from the step down unit to the level three, to the more intensive unit, saying, “Hey, I’m going to give these four babies their two month vaccines this weekend so I just wanted to make sure you had four beds ready cause I know they’re all going to have issues and need increased care.
I had mentioned before that I had sat in the call room before with a bunch of providers saying, “Hey we have this 25-weeker that was so strong and now, they never required intubation with a breathing tube to actually go on the vent, had a less invasive type respiratory support and you come in and they’re like, “Oh how embarrassing. We gave that baby his two-month immunizations and now he’s intubated and on the vent for the first time. Oops.” And it’s just kind of blown off.
Really low birth weight infants are 28 weeks of gestation or less and under 1000 grams, approximately 2.2lbs or less at birth. You had a group of physicians and a practitioner that went into a database of a large neonatology corporation withalmost 14,000 infants looked at. What the results said that they were looking at the pre-immunization period versus the post-immunization period and their sepsis workups went up 3.7 times in the post-immunization period. What sepsis means is a blood infection and so there were multiple labs drawn, blood cultures, urine cultures, they go ahead and start those babies on antibiotics right away while they wait for results so it’s not a benign thing. It’s life threatening. And if it ends up not being an infection, they’ve still had pain, they’ve still had invasive procedures, and they’ve had antibiotics given, which is not a benign thing for these babies with their very sensitive intestines. So it’s a big deal. We had increased respiratory support, two times higher in the post-immunization period and then intubation, actually getting intubated with a breathing tube and going on the vent at about 1.7 – 1.8 times higher and what really shocked me, I had to read it about three times, when I got down to the conclusion, they said based on this, there was no difference in reaction between single shots and combo shots and so you could just go ahead and keep giving the combo vaccines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPBHGa4TtUs
Whistle Blower Nurse
Since the Affordable Care Act came out, we are now as nurses required to ask every single patient who comes into the hospital if you’ve had your flu vaccine or your pneumococcal vaccine. If you say no to either one of those, in the computer an order will generate that says we need to give you this vaccine. We don’t need to speak to a doctor; it’s hospital policy. It’s now health department policy that we now have to give you the vaccine. Even if you came to the hospital with a stubbed toe, you will be offered both vaccines if you meet requirements, which just about everybody meets requirements for flu vaccine and most people over the age of 65 will meet the pneumococcal vaccine. Even if you come to the hospital with a stubbed toe, you are going to be given this vaccine. You have the right to say no. If you say no, they just check off as “refused”. This was never like this years ago. This was a new thing.
When you go into a hospital, if you need surgery, you need a knee replacement surgery, first they’re going to ask you if you’ve had the vaccines, and you’re going to say no. Then they’re going to say, “Well you need to sign this consent. If you’re going to have surgery, you need to sign this consent.” In the consent is a word called “biogenics” [and/or bioligics]. If you sign the consent saying I consent for you to give me biogenics [or biologics] basically it means they can give you anything deemed necessary, including vaccines. So if you say you didn’t get a flu shot and its flu season and you sign the consent to say they can give you biogenic[biologics], they will give you a flu vaccine even when you’re under anesthesia because you already signed the consent.
Unless you go and get your medical records, you will not know you got a flu vaccine. They may tell you at the end “Oh, by the way, you’re now covered. You got the flu vaccine,” or “You got the pneumococcal vaccine,” but two people now have reported to me last week, saying they got the vaccine, that they did not want the vaccine, and that they did not know.
… You can, when you sign consent for surgery, you can specifically say no vaccines. I don’t want this. You can write and initial after you say what you do not want and they have to honor that. And if they don’t honor it, they can be sued.
The word biogenics [biologics] is now being used. In the past, there used to be a consent that basically said we could give you blood products if we feel you need it, we could give you other medications if we feel you need it, but now with the word biogenics [biologics] it’s now including vaccines.
Brenda Ikemeyer, FNP
I’m a family nurse practitioner practicing emergency medicine. My story with immunization is basically I bullied a dad to get a chicken-pox vaccine for his two-year-old daughter when the chicken-pox vaccine first came out. She then developed shingles and went blind in her left eye at the age of three all because of immunizations. I had to take a flu shot because of mandatory vaccination for my job. I developed Guillain–Barré and I could not walk for a month and a half.
…It was a new vaccine and they didn’t want to get it. Nothing had come out about MMR at that time. There was no controversy with immunizations at that time. That was in ’99, ’98. I blame myself. Probably in 2002 when I had my Guillain–Barré reaction myself.
I do emergency medicine. I got out of primary care so I didn’t have to be part of the problem anymore. Now, I get to educate about why are we immunizing and when their children come in, I can actually make the VAERS report because their children come to the Emergency Department when they are vaccine injured.
Anonymous Nurses Speaking Out Against Vaccines (Their names have been changed to aliases in order to protect their careers)
Mel RN
I became aware of the dangers….well, I had to get my DTaP updated about four years ago to enter into my FNP program. My arm swelled up huge, like a football player’s and was red, hot, and swollen. This lasted a couple of weeks. I could not even work for a week or more. To be honest, I have been sick ever since. I have something autoimmune going on. I am not sure what it is, but I feel my body go through “flare ups.” …I am not 100% if it is related to this, but it is a definite possibility. Then, I have just awakened to more and more situations via Facebook and my own research. I am in functional medicine as an R.N. and plan to specialize in this as an FNP as well.
Jana RN
There is a huge emphasis on informed consent of the risks/benefits of procedures/meds. Vaccines are not singled out in this portion of the education. I get a strong feeling from comments made by the instructors that in the real world we won’t have time for proper informed consent often.
Lila RN
A year or so after I graduated and had my first child, I noticed that a high school friend posted on FB that she didn’t vaccinate her child. This led me to look into them enough to realize that they weren’t made of saline solution. I saw that Jenny McCarthy had started a “Green the Vaccines” campaign. Unfortunately, I didn’t really dig much further than that until the CDC Whistleblower story came out in the summer on 2014. I posted about it on FB, and thought it was going to become an international story and immediately affect the U.S. vaccine program. When I realized that it was a media blackout instead, I really started researching vaccines.
Liz RN
If nurses knew more about the dangers of vaccines I think more of them would feel ethically conflicted about administering them. I think now everyone is fooled into thinking that neuro-developmental problems are genetic. I NOW know that genetics are involved in the extent of injury, but I believe all vaccines are injurious.
…Based on my experience it doesn’t matter what is presented in school because the science isn’t being done. “You give a vaccine, you make antibodies, you are protected” – that’s all there is to it. There is so much more to it than that but it has been hard to find, especially when organizations such as the CDC fraudulently withhold data, there’s poor access to the VAERS data, the VAERS data is completely voluntary so it’s almost meaningless anyway, there’s no transparent access to the vaccine safety data. All the lack of transparency, the deliberate Google misdirections, [and] the very system of research funding all goes against vaccine safety research and sharing of information.
An Anonymous Nurse From The FB Page Informed Consent
I was asked to discuss a cover up I witnessed.
…The ambulance report was a male child who had just received vaccinations a few hours ago, who was progressively deteriorating in mentation and finally experienced sudden onset seizing. It was what we call status epilepticus, where the seizure starts, and it doesn’t stop. It just keeps going. I wrote in large letters across the bottom of the paramedic report “JUST RECEIVED VACCINATIONS, NOW SEIZING”. Often I didn’t get a chance to convey relevant or important material to the doctors because we were too busy. That medic radio report was stuck on top of the chart when it went to the doc, and they were supposed to look at it first before anything else. It also was supposed to be part of their record for the visit as it was the only record of prehospital interventions we often received and functioned as the first director of interventions.
On EMS arrival to the scene, kiddo was still in active seizure. They had administered drugs to stop the seizure, but were not convinced it was not still ongoing at some subacute level because there was no responsiveness and they were seeing clenched hands, and tight arms, and minimal spontaneous breathing, but it was apparently there, and pulseox was getting a reading over 90%. Mind you, I’m just getting what the very scared sounding paramedic was quickly spitting into the radio. It always makes you clench up when the paramedics sound scared. Anyway, I acknowledge their radio report and looked for an open room. There was a couple literally walking out, just discharged. We had bare minutes until their arrival. I couldn’t find the nurse assigned to the room, so I just ran in and hammered out a quick clean down so we could use the room when the medics got there.
Right as I finished cleaning the room, they roll in. Charge nurse is finally back, but has no idea what’s going on. I grab the papers and get them into the room yelling back at charge nurse “pediatric status epilepticus” so he knew to get people heading my way to help. I started getting bedside report as we are transferring the kiddo over to our gurney. Mom is with them, near breakdown, freaked out. Additional help arrives as we are padding the bed rails and working on vitals, and the nurse assigned to the room finally arrives. At this point, I’m supposed to turn the case over. But this is kind of heavy to drop, so I pause and give the nurse a quickie run down emphasizing the pediatrician office visit and vaccinations immediately prior to onset of symptoms with mom nodding yes while crying in the corner and the paramedic nodding yes.
Here, I then get out of the way, and I step out of the room, telling the nurse I’ll get the rest of the history and enter it for her to save her time so she can work on interventions. At this point the doctor is finally getting to the room, chart in hand, with the paramedic report and my large block writing visible on it. The medic is talking to me telling the rest of the story for their report. The doctor interrupts us and asks what happened. This is typical. Poor medics usually have to tell their story three times before they get back out the door unless all the staff meet them at the same time in the room. The paramedic starts relaying the story from call out, what they found on scene, interventions. The doctor asks if there is a seizure history. Medic says no. I add in that the child vaccinated only hours ago, and symptoms onset was after vaccination. The doctor does a dismissive “humph” and turns away from me and looks at the medic and asks, “Is that right?” The medic says, “Yes.” Then the doctor looked at the room and the mom standing about ten feet from us, kind of glares at us, turned on both of us and walks into the room.
I finish getting the medic report. And the doctor has started some orders, and the doctor is now talking to the mom who I hear talking about how he was perfectly healthy earlier, how the pediatrician was saying he looked in perfect health, how he got his vaccines. I figured my part was done.
… A couple hours go by before I finally catch a break to go check in. We dosed the heck out of the kid with benzo’s, and he was sawing logs and mom was calmer. I caught the nurse and asked if he came out of it at all, and she said he had some semi-lucid speech at one point and it looked like seizures were done, but that he had been gorked out with the drugs and had been sleeping for a while. She said the labs and imaging had been coming back, and that the doc was in contact with a peds neuro trying to decide what to do with the case.
I went into the room to check vitals and re-document. I was honestly helping the nurse who was busy where I finally had a break, but it also gave me an excuse to get back involved and stay involved in the case. I talked with the mom while she was in the room. I asked what she had been told. Not much. She told me the doctor did not believe the vaccine had anything to do with it. I asked her when the doc had told her this, and she said right away, when they first got there and met her. I asked if she had shared what the labs and imaging showed, and she said all she was told was that there was some kind of swelling in his brain and they were getting transferred to another hospital, and the doctor didn’t know what caused it.
(Encephalitis, or swelling of the brain is a common adverse reaction to vaccines, and it is frequently listed in vaccine warning inserts).
I went out to look at labs and imaging report from the perspective of patient education with the intention of filling the mom in more with what was going on. I also dug through to the doctors notes to see what the doctor had written up. Since they were being discharged, I could help the primary nurse by printing off our chart copies to make a transfer packet. The paperwork is what kills in the ER. The primary nurse was more than grateful to get the help, and I was more than willing to help. Plus it let me get a look at what was going on.
I quickly noted that there was absolutely nothing documented in the physicians notes about the vaccination or the pediatrician appointment, in spite of its obvious necessity for mention as it was the “last known normal” time and correlated with an exam by a medical doctor who declared him in perfect health. If for no other reason, that should have been in there to establish time frames for onset of illness. But it also, because of this, did not include any mention of vaccination, in spite of the mom saying it, the medic saying it, and the triage RN saying it. It appeared to be a new onset illness, out of the blue, that occurred with no outside interventions or changes in routine, if you were to simply read her physician pass-off notes (which is all the receiving medical doctor is going to do. They don’t read nurses notes). So this information was not being relayed. Most disturbing, in the face of this absence of inclusion of potential etiology, the disposition line that my doctor included under diagnostic impression was “encephalitis of unknown etiology”. Okay, well, yeah, I can’t argue with that statement, but, there was a potential source, a change in daily routine and exposure, that was temporally associated! It should have been mentioned, or at least discussed as a possibility.
Not willing to leave it alone, I approached the doctor and politely tried to broach the subject. I said that I noticed when I was putting together the packet, there was no mention of the pediatrician office and the vaccinations in her pass off report and ER summary, and did she want to amend this before I finalized the transfer packet. I thought it was a polite way of nudging to try to get her to include it. I got “the glare” and a stern voice dismissal that was something to the effect of “they’re not related”. That’s it. I said something like Don’t you want to at least include it for the neurologist to consider? And I got the glare again and was told no, and to just finish the packet.
So I went about piecing and copying the packet together. I included a larger text line with more emphasis about the vaccinations in my triage notes, hoping that at least someone over there might notice that. And then I tried to find the paramedic report to copy it. There is the paramedic radio report that I fill in while I’m talking to them on the radio and they are inbound. Then there is their official run report, which is their paperwork, which they make a copy of for our records. Both were missing from the chart. In fact, every mention of the vaccines was sterilized from the chart. The primary nurse had not written in anything about it either.
…The doctor, of course, did not report to VAERS. In spite of the fact that there were lab findings, radiology findings, and symptoms which all warranted a VAERS report, and the child was not just brought in to the ER, but was hospitalized, and assigned neurological follow up care.
… I went and filed a VAERS report nice and publicly sitting at a prominent terminal as close to the doctors as I could get. I made sure to say it loud enough to be overheard that I was filing a VAERS report on the kid we just transferred when a colleague questioned what I was doing. I know the doctor overheard. She ignored me.Top of FormBottom of Form
Conclusion
Medical freedom is quickly becoming endangered. Sadly, some things must get worse before they get better, and this is what we are experiencing now. When persuasion to vaccinate fails, we are seeing mandates, coercion, and deception used instead. Although this may seem like things are getting worse (and in some ways they are), in the end, these kinds of heavy-handed tactics will only make us stronger. Mandating vaccines for nurses is ultimately what inspired so many nurses to speak out against vaccines. The biggest difference between the nurses who are against vaccines or for them is that those nurses who are against vaccines actually know something more about vaccines than simply how to administer them. Knowledge has a way of changing minds, the same way it has changed the minds of these nurses. They took the time to research vaccines, as they were not taught about the dangers of vaccination in school, they had to take the time to teach themselves. Knowledge is power. When we live in ignorance, we are slaves to the propaganda of others. It is knowledge of the truth that will set us all free and restore our medical freedoms.
Immunization Research – Why This Doctor Reversed her Stance on Vaccines
UK based General Practitioner and homeopath, Dr. Jayne Donegan, was formerly a strong supporter of her country’s Universal Childhood Vaccination Programme. In this article, Dr. Donegan explains the research that led her to change her opinion, and how daring to challenge the prevailing wisdom on vaccination nearly destroyed her career.
Having trained as a conventional medical doctor, qualifying from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England in 1983, all of my undergraduate teaching and post-graduate experience in obstetrics and gynaecology, family planning, child health, orthopaedics, emergency medicine, and general practice led to me be a strong supporter of the UK’s Universal Childhood Vaccination Programme.
In the 1980s, I used to counsel parents who didn’t want to vaccinate their children against whooping cough, which was regarded as the “problematic” vaccine in those days. I was not one of those doctors who would gloss over unpleasant details. I used to tell them (as we doctors were told) that while there were adverse reactions associated with the vaccine, the chance of having adverse reactions from the pertussis vaccine were, at least, ten times less likely than the chance of complications from having the disease itself, and that the point of giving their child the vaccine was to prevent them from getting the disease. Indeed, I used to think that parents who didn’t want to vaccinate their children were either ignorant or sociopathic. I believe that view is common amongst doctors today.
Why did I have this attitude? Well, throughout my medical training I was taught that people no longer died by the thousands or hundreds of thousands from diseases like diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles due to the introduction of vaccines. At the same time, I was taught that diseases like typhus, cholera, rheumatic fever, and scarlet fever, for which there are no vaccines, stopped killing people due to improvements in social conditions (such as sanitation and clean water). It would have been logical to ask why social conditions were responsible for the decline in some diseases and not others, but the vast amount of information we are required to absorb during medical training causes us to accept information as it is taught rather than question or analyse it to make connections that might be obvious to someone else.
When my children were born in 1991 and 1993, I unquestioningly – well, that is to say, I thought it was with full knowledge backed up by all my medical training – had them vaccinated, up as far as the MMR, because that was the right thing to do. I even allowed my four-week-old daughter to be injected with an out of date BGC vaccine at a public health clinic. I noticed (by force of habit, I automatically scan vials for drug name, batch number, and expiry date) that the vaccine was out of date and said, “Oh, excuse me, it looks like it’s out of date.” The doctor answered matter-of-factly, “Oh don’t worry. That’s why the clinic was delayed for an hour. We were just checking that it was okay to give it, and it is.” I let her inject it. My poor daughter had a terrible reaction, but I was so convinced that it was all for the best, I carried on with all the rest of her vaccines at two, three, and four months.
That is where I was coming from. Even my interest in homeopathy didn’t dent my enthusiasm for vaccines. So far as I could see, it was the same process: give a small dose of something and it makes you immune. No conflict. So what happened?
In 1994, seven million school children were vaccinated against measles and rubella during the Measles Rubella Campaign. The UK’s Chief Medical Officer sent out letters to all GPs, pharmacists, nursing officers, and other healthcare staff, telling us that there was going to be a measles epidemic. The evidence for this impending epidemic was a complicated (and questionable) mathematical model based on estimates, which was not published at the time. We were told, “Everybody who has had one dose of the vaccine will not necessarily be protected when the epidemic comes. They need another one.” I thought that was okay since we know none of the vaccines are 100% effective. I did start to worry, however, when they said that even those who had had two doses of measles vaccine would not necessarily be protected when the epidemic came. They needed a third. You may not remember, but in those days, there was only one measles vaccine on the schedule. It was a live virus vaccine, so it was like coming in contact with the wild virus, just changed slightly to make it safer. Since then, of course, the pre-school dose has been added because one dose didn’t work, but in those days there was just “one shot for life.”
Then we were told that even two shots of a “one shot” vaccine would not protect people when the epidemic came. Basically, we were being told that anyone could be vaccinated, have whatever adverse reactions were associated with the vaccine, and get the disease with whatever complications were associated with it, even if they’d had two doses of the “one shot” vaccine. That didn’t seem right. At that point, I began to ask myself why I had been telling all these parents that the vaccine would stop their children from getting the disease and that vaccines are safer than taking the risk of catching the disease.
If you are wondering why anyone would have had two doses of the “one shot vaccine”, it is because the MMR was introduced in 1988. Many children had already been vaccinated against measles, but we were told that we should give them the MMR anyway as it would, “…protect them against mumps and rubella and boost their measles immunity.”
We were also told that the best way of vaccinating was en masse because this would “…break the chain of transmission.” So I began to wonder why we vaccinate all these small babies at two, three, and four months of age. Why not wait two or three years and then vaccinate everyone who has been born in the meantime, to “break the chain of transmission”?
Some things just didn’t quite add up. However, it is very hard to seriously question whether vaccination is unsafe or ineffective after such a strong indoctrination. The more medically qualified you are, the more difficult it is. In some ways, you are more brainwashed. It’s not easy, or, at least, it wasn’t then, to start down a path that might lead you in the opposite direction of all of your colleagues.
I read some books that could be described as “anti-vaccination.” These contained graphs showing that the majority of the decrease in deaths from and incidence of the infectious diseases for which we have vaccines (like the measles and whooping cough) occurred before the vaccines were introduced in the 1950s and 60s. I decided that I couldn’t just accept what these books were telling me, especially as the message was the opposite of what I had learned up until then. I needed to do my own research. The graphs in my textbooks and the UK’s Department of Health Immunisation Handbook (the Green Book) appeared to show that the introduction of vaccines caused precipitous falls in deaths from vaccinatable diseases.
I decided that if I were going to sincerely challenge what my professors had taught me at medical school, I would have to go and get the real data myself.
Accordingly, I called the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) and asked them to send me the graphs of deaths from the diseases against which we vaccinate from the middle of the nineteenth century (when we started keeping records) until the present. They said, “We don’t have them, except for smallpox and TB. We suggest you try the Department of Health.” I did. The Department of Health didn’t have graphs from the nineteenth or early twentieth century either. They said, “You’d better try the Office for National Statistics.” “I’ve already tried them,” I said. “They were the ones who advised me to contact you.” It seemed to be getting rather circular, so I called up the ONS once again and told them my problem. “Well,” they said, “we have all the books here from when the Registrar General started taking returns of deaths from infectious diseases in 1837. You can come along and look at them if you like.”
There was nothing for it. I had to go to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Pimlico (London), with my two young children aged six and four in tow, to extract the information myself. The girls were very good. They were used to travelling with me and following me around, and the library staff were very nice. They kindly gave my daughters orange juice to drink and paper and crayons to amuse themselves while I pulled out all the mothy old books from 1837 until 1900, after which, thankfully, there was a CD-ROM that could be bought at a great expense and taken home. It was the most unfriendly user piece of data storage that I have ever come across, but it was better than having to physically be at the ONS day after day. So I went home with all my notes and the CD-Rom and eventually produced my own graphs. I was startled to find that they were similar to the graphs in some of the books that I had recently read.
I was astonished and not a little perturbed to find that when you draw a graph of the death rate from whooping cough that starts in the mid-nineteenth century, you can clearly see a 99% drop in the death rate before the vaccine against whooping cough was introduced, initially in the 1950s and universally in the 1960s. I also realised that the reason the Department of Health’s graphs made the vaccine appear so effective was because they didn’t start until the 1940s when most of the improvements in health had already occurred, and this was even before antibiotics were generally available. If you selected only deaths in under 15 year-olds, the drop is even more dramatic. By the time whooping cough vaccine was part of the universal immunisation schedule in the early 1960s, all the hard work had already been done.
I now began to realise that graphs such as those featured in the in the Department of Health, Green Book were not a good or clear way of showing the changes in mortality (death) and morbidity (incidence of disease) that occurred before and after vaccination was introduced against these diseases.
Measles presented a similar pattern. The Department of Health Green Book features a graph that does not start until the 1940s. There appears to be great drop in the number of cases after the measle vaccine was introduced in 1968, but looking at a graph that goes back to the 1900s you can see that the death rate – death being the worst case complication of a disease – had dropped by 99% by the time the vaccine was put on the schedule. Looking specifically at under 15-year-olds, there was a virtual 100% decline in deaths from measles between 1905 and 1965 – three years before the measles vaccine was introduced in the UK.
In the late 1990s, there was a UK advertisement for the MMR vaccine, which featured a baby in nappies sitting on the edge of a cliff with a lion prowling on the other side and a voiceover saying, “No loving parent would deliberately leave their baby unprotected and in danger.” I think it would have been more scientific to put one of the graphs using information from the ONS in the advert. Then parents would have had a greater chance of making an informed choice, rather than being coerced by fear.
When you visit your doctor to discuss the vaccination issue and you come away feeling scared, this is because you are picking up how they feel. If all you have is the “medical model” for disease and health, all you know is that there is a hostile world out there and if you don’t have vaccines, antibiotics, and 100% bactericidal handwash, you will have no defence at all against all those germs surrounding you and your children. Your child may be okay when they get the measles, but you can never tell when disaster will strike, and they may be left disabled or dead by the random hand of fate. I thought like that myself, and when the awful realisation began to dawn on me that vaccines weren’t all they were cracked up to be, I started looking in a panic for some other way of protecting my children and myself – some other magic bullet.
My long, slow journey researching the vaccination disease ecology involved learning about other models and philosophies of health and the gradual realisation that it was true what people had told me all along, that “health is the only immunity.” We don’t need protecting from out there. We get infectious diseases when our body needs to have a periodic clean out. Children especially benefit from childhood spotty rashes, or “exanthems” as they are called, in order to make appropriate developmental leaps. When we have fevers, coughs, and rashes, we need to treat them supportively, not suppressively. In my experience, the worst complications of childhood infections are caused by standard medical treatment, which involves suppressing all the symptoms.
What is the biggest obstacle to doctors even entertaining the possibility that the Universal Childhood Vaccination Program may not the unmitigated success that it is portrayed to be? Or that there may be other ways of achieving health that are better and longer lasting? Possibly it is the fear of stepping out of line and being seen to be different – with all the consequences that this can entail as I know from personal experience.
It is very hard for doctors to start seriously questioning medical training that might lead them in the opposite direction to the healthcare system in which they work. Yet this is what I did when in the interests of fair play I agreed to act as an expert for two mothers who could find no one else acceptable to the court, in a case brought by absent fathers who wished to force vaccination for their daughters.
Although I am an expert in my knowledge of vaccination and disease ecology, I am not an expert in being cross-examined by hostile barristers. I presented evidence to show that the vaccines are neither so safe nor so effective as generally believed. The experts called on the father’s side, who sat on a committee recommending vaccination, an obvious conflict of interest, presented an opposite view. The judge swept aside my evidence, which an appeal judge called “junk science.”
Having heard about the furore via the BBC, the General Medical Council (GMC) accused me of serious professional misconduct and of bringing the profession into disrepute, threatening to strike me off the medical register, which would have destroyed my career and my livelihood.
It was a stressful and drawn out case that lasted more than three years. Ultimately and thankfully, the GMC panel found me not guilty and agreed in their findings that my research and conclusions had been objective, independent, and unbiased. Although happily, fully vindicated, it is not an exercise I would like to repeat.
It never has been, nor would it ever be, my intention to advise any parent not to vaccinate their child. However, I strongly feel that parents should be entitled to a full range of information before making their own decisions. That is why I give public seminars around the UK, including at CNM, the College of Naturopathic Medicine, where I review the impact, efficacy, and safety of vaccinations, and look at what options could be available to families who do not choose vaccination.
Author:
Dr. Jayne Donegan MBBS DRCOG DCH DFFP MRCGP MFHom UK based GP & Homeopath, Dr Jayne Donegan trained as a conventional medical doctor, qualifying from St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England, in 1983. She has experience in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Family Planning, Child Health, Orthopaedics, Emergency Medicine and General Practice. She is also a Homeopath, specialising in childhood issues, and is the author of numerous papers such as ‘Vaccinatable Diseases and their Vaccines’. jayne-donegan.co.uk Click through to the website of CNM (College o f Naturopathic Medicine) naturopathy-uk.com in order to see some of Dr. Donegan’s UK speaking dates.
The Most Atrocious, Widely Accepted Human Experiments of All Time
As humans, we have endured plenty of experimentation. Too often we have been unwitting test subjects for disease inducing experiments that were lauded as beneficial, and in some cases, even healthy! However, a few people have started to wake up and realize that they were being swindled by a shrewd and strategic plan that lines the pockets of the elite and keeps the rest of the population sick and under control.
Are you ready to wake up yet? If so, get ready to dive into the rabbit hole and discover four of the core experiments that have created disastrous results for our health, even though they have been heavily promoted by the establishment as healthy.
Dental Amalgams
It’s relatively easy to make a living as a dentist today. With the general population wolfing back hordes of processed and toxic foods, largely devoid of any nutrients and absorbing a variety of toxins introduced into the air, water, household, and personal care products, you have the perfect atmosphere for decaying and rotting teeth. With no one to properly explain how to avoid this fate (brushing is not the answer, but a small part of the solution), people continue to willingly parade into the dentist’s office to have restorative work done to keep the damage to a minimum.
But does it?
Sure, filling the holes in your teeth can stop that particular cavity from becoming heavily infected and creating even more issues down the road, but considering most dentists are still using amalgam fillings (comprised of approximately 50% mercury), the solution may be worse than the original problem.
For decades dentists have been using mercury based fillings to repair cavities. No one really cared to explore what the effects of an extremely noxious heavy metal placed directly into the mouth. Unfortunately many are now finding out it’s not good.
For example, following the initial exposure during the actual dental procedure, we now know that mercury fillings slowly leech mercury and mercury vapour, which can cause a multitude of symptoms related to the digestive system, nervous system, circulatory system, and reproductive system. It can damage the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and virtually every other organ in the body. It can also cause severe muscle and joint pain and lead to debilitating conditions such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, and multiple sclerosis.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that this experiment is slowly but surely ruining people’s health, many dental offices still endorse the use of mercury fillings, and worse, many people believe and trust their dentist who says they are safe enough to continue using!
As long as this mentality continues, humans will continue to serve as guinea pigs while we continue to learn how deadly mercury can be, especially when placed directly in the mouth.
Fluoridated Water
Sickeningly enough, water fluoridation began in the mid-1940’s as a solution to fluoride pollution created by the Atomic Bomb Program and the aluminum industry. Since this chemical waste had to be disposed of, it was placed in the water supply to dilute it then “sold” to dentists and the masses as a preventative to tooth decay.
Even more ridiculous is the notion that this mass poisoning strategy has been heralded as one of the top 10 greatest public health achievements in the 20th century and is still in effect today despite overwhelming evidence that it not only doesn’t help with tooth decay, but can cause significant health problems.
Most are not even aware that fluoride is a drug that severely damages the brain and thyroid. With it being added to municipal water supplies that reach nearly 211 million Americans, it is quite possibly the most widespread concern of our time. As of 2012, more than 67% of Americans received fluoridated water, while most other countries ban its use.
So how can water authorities be allowed to add a drug that is known to cause health side effects directly into your drinking water?
Add this to the things that make you go “hmmmm”.
Chemotherapy
With toxins permeating our lifestyles at an increasing rate along with consumption of a nutrient and antioxidant deficient diet, diseases like cancer have risen exponentially over the last few decades. Well meaning charity events and researchers have drummed up millions of dollars to find a drug to put an end to this epidemic, but alas, it’s all for naught. We’ll never find a real cure by searching for a drug that uses the same toxic strategy that caused the illness.
Chemotherapy has been used for decades as the premiere cancer killing protocol, but few have fully realized that this “kill all” approach is akin to burning down your house when you find out you have a rat infestation. Certainly, it will get rid of the rats, but then you are left with nothing but rubble. Now you have to try and rebuild – if you’ve survived the devastation of the fire itself.
To add insult to this widely accepted therapy, research has suggested that when chemotherapy damages healthy cells, they secrete a protein that actually accelerates the growth of cancer tumours! So now, not only have you destroyed your body and severely weakened your immune system, you are left with a new fight with nothing in your arsenal except more of the same poison that ruined your body in the first place.
With this treatment leaving a trail of dead participants and many others who can be akin to “the walking dead”, it is truly baffling that this experiment is still widely accepted and even honoured as the go-to treatment for those with cancer.
Vaccinations
The vaccine debate is one of the most hotly contested issues of our time, and it’s no surprise since it most commonly involves the lives of our precious children. This debate has many points and nuances to consider, and many of them are covered in the articles of Organic Lifestyle Magazine.
However, no matter how deep you want to go into this debate, it is impossible to ignore the fact that diseases such as autism have dramatically increased as the number of vaccines given at an early age increased. This direct correlation is undeniable to anyone paying attention. The fact that as many as 44 chemicals, excipients, preservatives, and fillers have been identified (such as aluminum, animal tissues and organs, formaldehyde, gelatine, thimerosal, and MSG) as ingredients in vaccines, it makes a person wonder how anyone can believe these injections are risk free. These obnoxious ingredients are very problematic for a grown adult with a mature immune system to detoxify, let alone a newborn baby with a very delicate and developing immune system!
So how does the medical mafia respond to this risky situation? With more vaccines, of course! To the tune of 3-4 times more than we had 30 years ago. All this while we continue to ignore the lack of studies that support the effectiveness of vaccinations and outright refute research that shows that major declines in life-threatening disease we are being vaccinated for were already in major declines before these vaccination efforts.
Although the debate continues over the safety and efficacy of the current vaccine ingredients and schedule, those who have been directly affected and can read between the lines are seeing that this is the most dangerous experiment of our time because it directly affects the next generation (our children) and their ability to carry on healthy and productive lives. The fate of the human race is at stake here!
I suggest you do more research on all of these areas, and not just from “trusted” government and corporate sources. Use your common sense, open your mind, and dare to let logic infiltrate your brain. It just might save you from any future dangerous experiments planned for our already sickly human race.
Oh, and one last thing. If all these efforts are so brilliant, and these are in actuality beneficial practices, why is the population getting exponentially sicker and not better?
If we ever wanted to see the end of a piece of legislation, it would be the DARK Act. If you are not familiar with it, this legislation is aimed at taking away our right to know what we are eating. States will not be able to legislate GMO labeling. The DARK Act completely blocks efforts to label genetically modified foods.
What it’s really all about is big business, corruption, and empty biotech promises and lies.
Big Business
This may seem a little off topic, but this fact about big business is really interesting. According to the Small Business Administration, as of 2010, the United States was home to 27.9 million small businesses and only 18,500 large businesses. In this case, a large business is defined as a business employing 500 or more employees. Yes, that’s right; 99.7% of the businesses in the United States are small businesses with 500 or fewer employees. So how and why do these few businesses carry so much weight and influence?
Corruption?
What else could it be other than corruption and payoffs? Why would our elected officials, whose sworn duty is to serve the people they represent, be so hell bent on ignoring the rights and wishes of the American people? Why do they want federal legislation that denies the rights of Americans to know what they are eating and what they are feeding their children?
Do they really think biotech is the answer to world hunger when other countries are seeing through the propaganda and lies and realizing that genetically modified crops are not the panacea they are purported to be. In addition, they are contaminating other crops (heirloom, organic, indigenous) as containment is impossible. (Who can control the wind and the birds?)
According to the Center for Food Safety, here are the results of recent polls of the American people:
When
Who Conducted the Poll?
Pro Mandatory
Labeling
11/23/15
The Mellman Group, Inc.
89%
6/9/2014
Consumer Reports
92%
07/27/13
New York Times
93%
2/25/11
MSNBC
96%
10/10
Reuters and NPR
93%
9/17/10
Washington Post
95%
9/21/10
KSTP – St. Paul/Minneapolis
95%
Biotech
They keep telling us genetically modified foods are safe, that fear of them is unscientific and frankly stupid. We know better.
Common sense tells us that growing and eating a food genetically modified to kill life (insects, infection, microbes), or modified to be able to withstand being drenched in chemicals designed to kill, not to mentiona all of the other agricultural poisons (that we end up eating) is not smart. Add to that the fact that the chemicals used to grow these plants are destroying farmlands, and it is a no brainer.
We don’t even need the studies showing us that GMOs cause cancer and reproductive failure in lab animals to know this is a bad, bad idea. And yes, these studies do exist. And yes, the biotech companies know they exist. That’s why they do short term studies to “prove” their products are safe and pretend the long-term studies that reveal the real and present dangers don’t exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrBb00-jR7c
What Can We Do?
On March 1, 2016, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry again revived the DARK Act by voting on legislation, which is now headed to the full Senate. The bipartisan vote was 14-6 in favor.
This piece of legislation “…directs the Agriculture Secretary, in coordination with other federal agencies, to engage in a consumer education and outreach effort. Information will be science-based and related to environmental, nutritional, economic, and humanitarian benefits of agricultural biotechnology.”
While vague, its purpose is to strike down any attempts by individual states to require GMO labeling for food sold in their state. It claims biotech foods are safe and that this is simply an expensive marketing issue. (With a clear message that the American people are deranged and uninformed).
Tell your elected officials how you feel. Tell them that you don’t care that the World Health Organization claims GMOs are safe or that the Senate committee thinks they are safe. You still deserve the right to choose. We don’t need to be in the dark. Turn on the light. Label GMOs.
The Case for Carob – This Chocolate Alternative Has A Lot to Offer
Cacao growers are facing climate fluctuations along with a growing list of diseases and pests that attack their crops. While the Foundation for a Sustainable Cocoa Economy is on the case (breeding new varieties of cacao and looking for locations that will still be able to sustain cacao production, in say, twenty years), no one knows if they’ll be able to meet the world’s ever expanding demand. What’s going to happen when we run out of chocolate? Will we replace chocolate with carob?
Carob Is Sustainable
Humankind’s long, exciting history with chocolate makes carob seem like the quiet, reliable but less dangerous, less sexy option. It is, but it is also a sustainable one.
Carob also beats chocolate on human rights.
Carob is a hardy legume originating in the Mediterranean that can stand temperatures as low as 20°F. Unlike chocolate, carob doesn’t contain caffeine or theobromine. There are few pests that affect it, so it is not likely to be treated with pesticides. Though carob does need to be dried, unlike chocolate, it doesn’t need to be fermented, which further limits its contact with animals and insects.
Perhaps the most important feature of the carob plant is its drought-resistance. Cacao is a water-hungry plant that needs nearly eighty inches of rainfall a year. Regions close to the equator where cacao grows are experiencing drier conditions as climate change evolves, making cacao a less sustainable crop as water resources decline. In contrast, carob requires roughly 20 inches of rain a year, and that’s only to produce fruit. A mature tree can survive drought conditions for years. Multiple signs are pointing to water being the most precious resource in the near future. Shifting our dependence to crops that are less water-intensive is critical.
It Doesn’t Have All of Those Pesky Human Rights Issues
Carob also beats chocolate on human rights. Recent investigations into chocolate production on the Ivory Coast found evidence of continued human rights abuse with 12,000 children smuggled in and made victims of modern slavery. The average carob product is much less labor intensive and more frequently farmed in countries with better-regulated labor laws. It is always more likely to be fair-trade.
Nutrition
Sugar is energy, and we’re biologically wired to want it. But all forms of sugar are not equal, and too much of it and many of the modern forms of it combine to feed Candida and cause other damage. Carob pulp is about 50 percent sugars and while gorging yourself on it isn’t recommended, the naturally occurring sugars benefit greatly from carob’s fiber content, which slows down the absorption of said sugars. This sugar content also has the side benefit of lowering the amount of added sugar needed to make carob palatable.
Carob contains a rich array of nutrients. Like chocolate, carob has significant antioxidant activity, but carob has three times more calcium. It’s also a good source of B vitamins, vitamin A, potassium, magnesium, and trace minerals like iron and manganese. It also serves as a protein source.
In natural medicine, carob’s levels of pectin and tannin help stop serious cases of diarrhea. Its antioxidant profile has also been effective in helping lower cholesterol, and some studies suggest carob is capable of attacking cervical cancer cells.
So Why We Aren’t Clamoring for Carob?
Short Answer? It’s not chocolate.
Carob’s natural sweetness actually plays against it in the taste category, as the bitterness found in chocolate gives it a stronger and more varied flavor profile. Chocolate also contains more fat, another food stuff we find hard to resist.
While linking carob with chocolate does garner some positive press, it also creates carob’s biggest obstacle. Carob and chocolate are most often a sweet treat, they are combined with like ingredients, they are usually the same color, and they do have a similar taste. However, anyone biting into carob expecting it to taste just like chocolate will be disappointed and forever think of it as an inadequate substitute. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Reframe the Situation
So, it’s not chocolate. If you’re able to separate carob from chocolate, carob can be a satisfying treat. It’s great in homemade energy bites, desserts, and even smoothies. Keep an open mind and try it. You just might have a new favorite sweet snack. Here’s a recipe to get you started.
Carob Coconut Rough Slice
Makes 16-20 single-serve squares
This recipe, Carob Coconut Rough Slice, from Be Good Organics, is used with permission. All of the items listed for the recipe can be purchased from their site. Always use certified organic ingredients whenever possible.
Base Ingredients
1c almonds (soaked 8 hrs or overnight, rinsed and well drained)
1/2c raw carob powder
1c dates (soaked for a few hours then drained – save the water to use as sweetener in your hot drinks or in a smoothie)
Add almonds to a high-speed food processor or blender, and blend until fine.
Add the carob powder and salt and blend again.
Now add the dates one by one while the machine is running (through the hole in the top), until fully combined.
Remove from the processor into a bowl, then mix in the coconut.
Finally mix in the coconut oil until well combined.
Pour into a glass or metal tin lined with a square of baking paper and press down until really firmly packed – then place in the freezer to set.
Now for the topping, add the cashews to your food processor and blend until they become a fine powder. Add the carob powder until mixed, then one by one while the motor is running add your medjool dates.
Make sure your second measure of coconut oil is melted but well cooled (not warm, or it will separate). Add to the processor until the mixture becomes one big gooey ball.
Take the base out of the freezer, press the topping down on top of the base and smooth over. Place back in the freezer for about an hour until set, then remove, slice, and store in the freezer or fridge.
This will last a couple of weeks in the fridge. If you want it to last longer (or you have limited self-control), it will also keep in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Dying to Cut – Unnecessary Surgeries You May Want to Avoid, and Why
People respond to financial incentives. Physicians are no exception to this basic rule of human nature. According to Merrit Hawkin’s salary survey, the average compensation for a family general practitioner in 2011 was $178,000. For that same year, the average compensation for a general surgeon was $330,000, with orthopedic surgeons commanding an average salary of $532,000. Obviously, it pays to cut on patients.
Surgical procedures are commonly forced on patients by doctors who are not surgeons, with or without patient consent, often under enormous pressure from profit-driven hospitals, even when it isn’t in the patient’s best interest. And, of course, the charge is added to the bottom line.
Just A Little Cut, They Tell You, Before Performing An Episiotomy
An episiotomy is a surgical procedure wherein the surgeon makes an incision in the perineum, severing the tissue between the vagina and the anus. Routine episiotomies have been shown to be harmful to women and not beneficial to babies. Episiotomies run the risk of complications such as increased long-term discomfort, infection, hematoma formation, recto-vaginal fistula formation, and dysfunction of the anal sphincter. Many of the possible complications from episiotomies require corrective surgery. It is understandable why many women would not want such a procedure performed on them, and yet the procedure is forced on many women on a regular basis, under the guiding rule that the doctor knows best.
According to the authors of the national Listening to Mothers II Survey (2006) said, “The great majority of mothers who had experienced episiotomy (73%) stated that they had not had a choice in this decision.”
Routine episiotomy has been scientifically discredited for more than 20 years, and yes, child birthing experiences like this are becoming more commonplace:
Dr. A came into the room and after two pushes he had scissors in his hands and told the nurse that he was going to perform as episiotomy. I said, “Why?” … I pushed two more times, and he was going to cut, and I said, “No, Don’t Cut Me”. Then I said, “Why, why can’t we try?” He said why you don’t go home and try or go to Kentucky! So then after he yelled at me he cut my vagina twelve times. So before the episiotomy, the nurse said it’s only going to be a little cut. A little cut turned into Dr. A’s horrific rage against me as a human being and against my will to begin with. I wanted to cry so badly and I was so horrified while he was cutting me.”
Kimberly Turbin has since filed suit against Dr. Abbassi. Her attorney explains, “Today, legal protections for American women in childbirth are uncertain—but with Ms. Turbin’s case, I intend to show that there are, indeed, real consequences when providers inflict harm on vulnerable patients.”
Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated incident. Rebecca Woolf did not want an episiotomy, and she clearly communicated that fact to her doctor in her prenatal visits. “Oh yeah, it shouldn’t be a problem. Sounds good,” Woolf recalled him saying. “But when we got into the delivery room, it was, ‘I’ve got to do this, I’ve got no choice. If I don’t cut you, you’re going to tear. It’s going to be terrible. It’s going to be way worse.”
…I had pushed, like, once and he said, ‘I’m going to have to cut you, or else you’ll tear.”
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reported 443,000 episiotomies performed in 2007. A 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that between 30 to 35 percent of vaginal births in the U.S. involve an episiotomy.
The episiotomy rates among American midwives is roughly 3%.
C-Section
According to survey results, (32%) of respondents gave birth via cesarean section. Many women said they would have preferred the option of giving birth vaginally, but their doctors refused natural childbirth as an option.
The mainstream media prefers to emphasize the glamor of “designer births” wherein labor is induced and babies are born by cesarean section on schedule, followed by a tummy tuck. Despite their emphasis on this way of giving birth, these options are rarely sought after. More prevalent than designer births are allegations of profound abuse. Andrea Davis explains that she can’t recall her most recent birth, “without crying and becoming physically ill at times.”
Angela’s doctor manually removed her placenta and performed a uterine sweep following her baby’s birth, while blatantly ignoring her distress and refusing to speak to her. “I have never had someone put their arm up inside of me in my three previous births, let alone without telling me what they were doing first, and without asking permission. [The doctor] had zero respect or regard for me as a human being.”
Another woman explains that she was rolled into the OR while she was screaming, “I don’t want a C section!” while being told, “If you don’t shut up, we will knock you out!”
Another shares her gruesome experience giving birth.
When my plans for an HBAC [home birth after cesarean] failed, the hospital treated me like a criminal. I was ignored, yelled at, verbally abused, denied pain medication, neglected, separated from my husband, held down, strapped to a table, and told that my baby and I would most likely die…
Then I was put to sleep.
Strangers witnessed my baby’s first breath; we were not surrounded by love in that operating room. I suffer from PTSD.”
Rinat Dray a mother of three boys had her first two children delivered by C-section that resulted in difficult recoveries. So in 2011, she was determined to have her next baby naturally, referred to “vaginal birth after cesarean,” or VBAC.
After several hours of labor, Dr. Dray’s doctor abruptly decided when and how Rinat Dray was to give birth.
He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re making good progress. I don’t think it’s going to be natural. I don’t have all day for you.’ …They pushed me into the operation. I was begging all the way, ‘Don’t do it, my baby is fine! Don’t do it!’ His answer was just, ‘Don’t speak.’ “
What if You Are Not Dead Yet? You Better Speak Up
According to consulting firm, Milliman, the recipients of single-organ transplants—heart, intestine, kidney, liver, single and double lung and pancreas—are charged an average of $470,000 dollars, ranging from $288,000 for a kidney transplant to $1.2 million for an intestine transplant.
The current criteria on brain death was put in place by a Harvard Medical School committee in 1968. In 1981, the Uniform Determination of Death Act made brain death a legal form of death in all 50 states.
The exam for brain death is straightforward, but by no means foolproof. A doctor splashes ice water in your ears, pokes you in the eyes with a cotton swab and checks for gag reflexes, and then he runs some other tests. The whole process takes less time than a typical eye exam. Finally, in what’s called the apnea test, the ventilator is disconnected to see if you can breathe unassisted. If not, you are often declared brain dead. (Some or all of the above tests may be repeated later for confirmation.)
Unfortunately, many people who are declared brain dead are never tested for higher brain activity. Even if testing for higher brain activity was to be required, brain death diagnoses would still not be an exact science. The harsh reality is that vital organs could become useless if doctors always waited until they were positive the donor was dead before they removed them. Giving the gift of life may be something that you do while you are still alive.
We’ll never know how many patients were pronounced brain dead who would have recovered if their doctors had not harvested their organs.
There have been numerous accounts of patients who came to consciousness just in the knick of time, people who recovered after a firm diagnosis of “brain death” was already given.
Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old Oklahoman, flipped over on his 4-Wheeler and suffered catastrophic brain injuries in November 2007. Thirty-six hours after his accident, doctors at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, declared him ‘brain dead.’ Preparations to harvest his organs were underway when friends and relatives gathered to say their final goodbyes. His cousin, a nurse, wanting to make certain, scraped his pocket knife along the bottom of Zack’s foot. Zack jerked his foot away. Just months later, Zack was walking and talking. Zack recalled hearing the doctor say he was dead and being ‘mad inside’ but unable to move.
Steven Thorpe, a British 17-year-old, suffered horrific injuries in a multi-car accident. Four doctors declared him ‘brain dead.’ Doctors asked his family to consider donating his organs before his life-support was turned off. The family sought a second opinion from a neurologist who detected faint brain waves. Seven weeks later, Steven was discharged from the hospital having made a near-full recovery. In 2013, at age 21, now an accountant trainee, he spoke to the media for the first time: ‘Hopefully (my experience) can help people see you should never give up. My father believed I was alive—and he was correct.’ ”
Doctors are expanding their definition of what it means to be a viable donor.
Colleen Burns was initially found unresponsive and surrounded by empty bottles of Benadryl, Xanax, a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory drug on Oct.16, 2009. If her prognosis remained hopeless, it would have proven to have been more profitable for the hospital.
Colleen did not meet the standards for withdrawal of care. Her paperwork documents a cardiopulmonary arrest, a heart attack that conveniently resulted in brain damage. The heart attack never happened and doctors ignored nurses’ observations that her condition was improving. Nurses noted that she curled her toes when touched, flared her nostrils, and moved her mouth and tongue. Poison control specialists recommended using activated charcoal to stop Burns’ body from absorbing the drugs, but the recommended treatment never happened. She became conscious not a moment too soon, waking up seconds before a transplant team was set to harvest her organs. (Unfortunately, Colleen’s later suicide attempt in 2011 was successful, taking her life at age 41).
New rules have been established to expand eligibility for donation. Patients on ventilators whom doctors find to be “hopeless” or “vegetative” are now seen as viable candidates for organ donation. Newer rules have also been put in place to allow donation after cardiac death. Despite the flawed track record of our current protocols, the changes put in place are ensured to maximize organ donation, not minimize mistakes. The true magnitude of the problem encompasses the countless cases no one hears about, all the patients who would have woken up if given the opportunity. We hear only about those who woke up in time.
Breast Augmentation
At what age should breast augmentation surgery be considered? Should a parent be allowed to force breast augmentation surgery on an unwilling child? How young is too young for breast augmentation surgery?
Sarah Burge had been under the knife since she was seven years old. She has spent nearly a million dollars on surgeries, earning her the nickname,”The Human Barbie.”
Poppy kept bugging me to have it done. She’d stomp her feet and throw a tantrum, and say things like, “Mommy, you had your first surgery at 7! I’m 10 now! I want my surgery!”
Sarah Burge had to extend her search to Latin America in order to find a doctor willing to do it. No physician in the UK or the U.S. would agree to perform the surgery, citing ethical prohibitions. She found a Mexican doctor who routinely performs surgeries from home, at a bargain price.
Sarah came to me after being turned down by lots of doctors. People with ethics and concerns for children. Me, I don’t have those things. I performed the surgery, and it went very, very well. Young girl, she has a great set of breasts now.
Male Genital Mutilation, AKA, Circumcision
Whenever a male infant is born, his country of origin is arguably the biggest factor in determining whether or not his penis will remain intact. American parents have been lied to, and they have been sacrificing their children for an ancient superstition, a medical myth, or what they perceive to be the cultural norm. Over a hundred children die each year from complications arising from circumcision. Many more suffer from botched circumcisions that often requiring corrective surgery.
Does it make sense to risk an infant’s life to make their genitals more closely resemble a family member’s? What if the operation were botched? Does it not follow that it would be beneficial for us to stop doing routine surgical procedures?
Justifications for circumcision vary. There are many myths surrounding circumcision. A growing number of men grow up resenting that they were circumcised because they did not consent to the procedure.
Ahmadi gave birth to a baby boy who loved attention, cried very little, and smiled at his parents. “He gave us the most amazing moments of our life.” Against their better judgment, Ahmadi and John Heydari were persuaded by their pediatrician to circumcise their son. They had resisted their doctor’s recommendation to have their son circumcised because they were believed that “Mother Nature created us the way she intended us to be.”
In a country that no longer circumcises the majority of their infants (32%), this Canadian pediatrician had to be determined in order to gain consent from the Iranian immigrants.
Ahmadi admits that she and her husband knew, almost immediately after their son’s surgery, that something was seriously wrong.
The previously cheerful baby –
Was crying so much, so hard, and he wouldn’t stop,…He was bleeding, and it only got worse over just hours … It was so obvious from the blood his tiny body had lost that he was in danger.”
Ryan Hedari was brought to Toronto’s North York General Hospital. Pathologists said he succumbed to “hypovolemic shock” caused by bleeding from the circumcision, incisions which emptied his body of approximately 40% of his blood supply. It was too much for him to take, and he died.
His parents are wracked with grief. “We … waited for care that could have saved his life, but that level of care never came.”
The loss of Ryan, our only child, has made us realize that we can’t possess anything, even our hopes and dreams. We hope that this never happens to any other baby.”
Mario Viera’s parents had repeatedly told the hospital staff that they did not want their son circumcised. Like most Latin Americans, they consider themselves culturally opposed to circumcision, and they made their position clear. Eight days after their son was born and was still being cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit, Vera Delgado returned home briefly to take a shower and to change her clothes. By the time she got back to South Miami Hospital, the hospital staff had circumcised her child, supposedly by mistake. She is suing the hospital for assault and battery and asking for a million dollars for the deformity the circumcision caused.
Her attorney, Spencer Aronfeld, explains:
This is not medical malpractice. We are suing for battery, an unauthorized assault on this baby. They took a knife to him without his parent’s permission.
The baby was in neonatal intensive care with complications from a birth-related infection. They took the baby out and amputated healthy tissue from the penis in an irreversible procedure.
…The parents were very explicit they did not want him circumcised, and [the hospital] had asked the parents repeatedly.”
…We are the only country in the world that routinely does non-religious and non-medical circumcisions.
Americans need to learn circumcision is not the way penises were meant to be.”
Conclusion
Generally speaking, the more surgeries that take place, the more profit is made through patient care. It pays to cut. If doctors only cut on consenting patients, they wouldn’t make as much money. Childbirth is done by a schedule designed to enhance the profitability of hospitals, not the safety of the mothers or the newly born. The American infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment. Surgical interventions are increasingly common, and are forced on women for reasons such as a “failure to progress.” If you don’t achieve progress in due time on your own, they will cut you open to achieve their notion of “progress.” Surgical childbirths do pay better than natural childbirths.
Circumcised penises pay better than intact penises. Don’t be fooled. That is the main reason circumcision has been perpetuated in modern times. There are also a significant number of people who desire to cut on your children. They know it isn’t medically necessary, but they enjoy taking your newborn children to soundproof rooms, ripping the foreskin from the glans, and then cutting into the foreskin, amputating the prepuce. Dr. Raymond Rezaie stands accused of botching over 30 such operations. Despite his track record, he doesn’t want to stop doing them. Infants do not consent to circumcisions; they fight them. That’s why doctors strap them down.
Surgical operations are often done routinely, and often against a patient’s will. At a time when people are at their most vulnerable, they are either told they have no choice, or they are never given a choice. The choice to be an organ donor shouldn’t mean that the gift of life could cost us our own lives, but this remains a very real possibility.
It used to be commonplace to get a second or even a third opinion in order to confirm the diagnoses whenever surgery was recommended. This kind of due diligence is no longer the norm. Instead, patients trust their physicians, taking it on blind faith that it’s in everyone’s best interest that they be cut open. Rarely is it acknowledged that doctors are dying to cut on us, and they may be the only one to benefit.
Listening to Mothers II: Report of the Second National U.S. Survey of Women’s Childbearing Experience – Eugene Declercq, Carol Sakala, Maureen Corry, and Sandra Applebaum
