We cannot prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that vaccines do more harm than good anymore than anyone else can prove that they are beneficial. There are too many variables. But to say that there is nothing to worry about with vaccines is to bury one’s head in the sand.

Vaccine companies are corrupt. They lobby for new laws preventing lawsuits for vaccine damages. They ship vaccines they find to be tainted, contaminated, or otherwise compromised to developing nations under the guise of being altruistic. They lobby to pass laws forcing vaccines on people, even when the majority of healthcare practitioners state that the vaccine is completely unnecessary. They test dangerous concoctions on the military (soldiers don’t get to choose which vaccines they will receive and some have had dire consequences before being pulled). They continue to add more and more vaccines to the vaccine schedule (recommended vaccines), overloading children at an early age. Some children are receiving as many as 24 shots within their first two years of age. And to top it off, they continue to lobby to try to make vaccines mandatory for all United States citizens. Fortunately, unlike the previous laws they have successfully lobbied to pass, they are yet to have luck with this one.

Vaccinations Cause Injury

We have more vaccinations on our schedule than any other country. We also have one of the highest infant mortality rates and one of the highest newborn death rates among industrialized nations. We also have the highest rate of autism.

Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.” – CNN

The United States has the highest number of mandated vaccines for children under 5 in the world (36, double the Western world average of 18), the highest autism rate in the world (1 in 150 children, 10 times or more the rate of some other Western countries), but only places 34th in the world for its children under 5 mortality rate.” – Generation Rescue

Our autism rates, along with many other neurological disorders that can be attributed to the preservatives in vaccinations, are skyrocketing with a direct and very clear correlation to the number of immunizations children are receiving. Anyone who reads the studies can plainly see this. Our brains aren’t working well. While this can be attributed to many factors, studies are being ignored or manipulated in order to hide the truth and keep the profits flowing.

We are obviously doing something wrong.

Fortunately, today, pretty much everyone knows that vaccinations can cause autism and other neurological disorders. This is in stark contrast to just a few years ago when I would write a Facebook post about how vaccines can cause these injuries, and I would be flooded with comments telling me how wrong I was. Since then the CDC and even a few heads of the vaccine companies now admit that these injuries are happening. Julie Gerberding, back when she was the director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control, confirmed to CBS News:

…if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.”

Now Julie is the President of Merck’s Vaccines Division. No surprise there!

If you’ve ever read the forms required before getting vaccinated, you know the dangers, and you know the drug companies and hospitals are aware of the dangers. We also have the pharmaceutical companies spending millions of dollars every year lobbying in order to get bills passed that make it impossible to hold them legally responsible for any of their vaccine damages as they continue to push more and more new and obviously unnecessary vaccines on us. With 1 out of 150 children affected by autism, according to the National Vaccine Information Center, just imagine how many injuries we don’t know about. Imagine how many children learn everything more slowly, how many children end up with ADHD and dyslexia because of vaccines. How many children are deemed troublemakers and are thought to be unwilling to learn because they can’t learn the way other children do, due to vaccines? And how many children progress significantly slower in so many ways thanks to vaccinations?

And many of the reports, even from the CDC’s own website, show that the likelihood of vaccine injuries are greater than the likelihood of getting the disease the immunization is intended to prevent. Take the DPT vaccine for instance. The chances of a serious adverse reaction are one in 1750, while the chances of dying from pertussis are one in several million. Another example is the HPV vaccine. They tried to pass law forcing young girls (starting at 11) to receive this vaccination. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease and the infections in young women are temporary and have little to no long-term significance.

How many people have you heard of that got sick because they did not vaccinate?

How many have you heard of that got sick because they did vaccinate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HPe-s1V2o

Check out Vaccines, Retroviruses, DNA, and the Discovery That Destroyed  Judy Mikovits’ Career

Vaccinations and Eradication of Disease

Many people in the natural health community will agree that drug companies are corrupt and that the number of vaccines recommended for people is ridiculous and dangerous. They will typically contend that most of today’s vaccines likely do more harm than good. The educated ones will often point to the chickenpox and the measles vaccine and agree that these are obviously totally unnecessary, historically ineffectual, and not worth the risks. But many still argue in favor of the efficacy of the smallpox and polio vaccines.

Diseases run their course. Eventually, a natural immunity develops or the species becomes extinct. There is considerable evidence that this was a contributing factor with smallpox and polio. In addition, health plays a huge role in disease prevention. It’s simple. The cleaner the water and food supply is, the healthier the people are, the better their bodies are at defending against disease. It’s a logical, but typically ignored, fact.

Was Poliovirus Eradicated with Immunization?

Historical documents show a decline in polio cases after the introduction of the poliovirus vaccine for four reasons:

1. Improvements in sewage and water systems. Polio is spread via feces/oral route, and sanitation policies clearly played a major role in the decline of polio. In every case of polio outbreaks, unsanitary conditions were the cause of the epidemic.

If the poliovirus vaccine is responsible for eradicating polio in our country,  then why is the poliovirus still prevalent in India, the Congo, and many African countries? There are still outbreaks after years and years of annual polio vaccine campaigns. This is due to a lack of sanitation and due to the vaccine itself. Wherever people use waterways for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and for sewage, polio will never go away.

2. The criteria for diagnosing the poliovirus changed. Doctors trusted vaccines to the point that they mis-diagnosed polio patients if they had been previously vaccinated. Instead, these well-meaning doctors attributed the symptoms to other diseases.

3. Before vaccinations, many doctors diagnosed anyone and everyone with polio-like symptoms as having poliovirus, regardless of the fact that other viruses like Coxsackie, echo, and enteroviruses can also cause long-term paralysis,

4. And last, but certainly not least, polio cases were already on the decline dramatically before the vaccine was introduced.

So during the peak of polio, everyone with polio-like symptoms was said to have the poliovirus. After sanitation programs began, cases of polio dropped significantly. Next, immunization began. Then there was another drop because everyone with polio-like symptoms, including those with polio, was said not to have the poliovirus.

Polio is long-term paralysis caused by the poliovirus and other diseases as well. Prior to 1954, the following undoubtedly hid behind the name “poliomyelitis”: Transverse Myelitis, viral or “aseptic” meningitis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS)- (what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had)[4], Chinese Paralytic syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, epidemic cholera, cholera morbus, spinal meningitis, spinal apoplexy, inhibitory palsy, intermittent fever, famine fever, worm fever, bilious remittent fever, ergotism, post-polio syndrome, acute flaccid paralysis(AFP).” – Suzanne Humphries, MD

Now the CDC reports that out of 162 confirmed cases of  paralytic polio, eight were contracted outside of the United States and 154 cases were actually caused by the vaccine itself. Mainstream-media is reporting that the polio vaccine campaign in India was a success. But there are 47,500 new cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis, which is caused by the polio vaccine and is said to be clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly.

Are Immunizations Responsible for the Eradication of Smallpox?

Many people point to the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme that started in 1967. Initially, immunizing everyone with the vaccine was the plan, but it proved too difficult to implement and the idea was abandoned in favor of surveillance and containment.

This involved trained workers searching for cases, with rewards for those who found them. Cases and their contacts were then isolated; contacts were vaccinated.” – History Today

When Japan started compulsory vaccinations in 1892, they saw yearly increases in smallpox infections. In twenty years, there were 29,979 deaths from smallpox, and all of these people had been vaccinated.

In the Philippines, 8 million people received 24.5 million vaccinations (95% of their population). What followed was their worst smallpox epidemic ever with a quadrupled death rate.

In England, before 1853, the largest known  smallpox death count for a two-year period was approximately 2,000. Shortly after England’s compulsory vaccination , the death rate in England and Wales began to climb. In 1870 and 1871, the death rate peaked at more than 23,000 smallpox deaths. When the City of Leicester, England stopped vaccinating for smallpox between 1882 and 1908, they saw a remarkable reduction in cases compared to the rest of England.

In 1871, Bavarian cases of smallpox deaths totaled 30,742,. Of the dead, 29,429 had been vaccinated.

Polio, and virtually every other contagious epidemic disease for which we vaccinate. is spread by unsanitary conditions to people with poor health. Better sanitation reduced the occurrence of smallpox and polio, not vaccinations. The studies show us that, too often, the people who suffer from these diseases have either been vaccinated themselves, or they caught the disease from someone else who had been vaccinated.

One of the great triumphs of medical science is said to involve the eradication of smallpox. The fact that it was in decline before mass vaccination was instituted is conveniently forgotten, as are the many cases of fully immunized individuals contracting the disease.” – Vaccination and Immunization: Dangers, Delusions and Alternatives by Leon Chaitow.

The risks involved in smallpox inoculation are fairly well known. The United States government asked doctors to stop routine smallpox vaccinations in 1972. For some previous years, the only known cases of infection with smallpox were people who had been vaccinated. On top of that the vaccine is the most reactive of all and has been linked to the most serious side effects including death. It is also noted in many medical reports that people who receive the vaccine are not necessarily less likely to get smallpox, they are simply more likely to survive smallpox. This contradicts studies that report cases of smallpox deaths. When countries were doing compulsory vaccinations for smallpox, the death rate for those who received the vaccinations was as high or almost as high as the death rate for the non-vaccinated who contracted the disease.

Are Any Vaccinations Responsible for Eliminating Disease?

We could write about every single vaccine out on the market (if we wanted a 50 page article), and the story would be the same with the same answer. The answer is “no.” Sometimes we found graphs that make it look as though a disease was eliminated by immunizations, only to find that the graph has been manipulated. For instance, if you start a graph close to when a vaccine is administered to many people, it usually looks as though the vaccine had an effect on the infectious disease, when in fact, if you look back a few more years, it turns out that these diseases were already on a drastic decline. Time and time again, sanitation efforts increase (as they should when a population of people are getting sick) right before the drop in numbers.

The chart above is an example of a smallpox chart (from tetrahedron.org) made to look as though a smallpox vaccine did its job by starting the chart at a date well past when the disease began its decline (click to see full size).

But many other charts show an entirely different story.

Disease is spread when a population of poor, unhealthy people drink, cook, and bathe in water contaminated with sewage. Historically, when the disease begins to spread beyond the borders of the poor communities, people are quarantined and the communities are cleaned up and sanitized. This is when the disease declines within the population. Then a vaccine comes along, there is a bump in the amount of people infected due to the vaccine, but because money is involved, the reporting gets skewed and the vaccine takes all the credit.

A Dirty Business

Earlier this month, (July 2013), the CDC posted a page on their website stating that more than 98 million Americans received one or more doses of the polio vaccine within an 8-year time span in which a portion of the vaccines contained a cancer causing polyomavirus known as SV40. The page was quickly pulled down. In May of 2010, federal health authorities recommended that doctors suspend the use of Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the United States against rotavirus, because the vaccine was contaminated with material from a pig virus. In 2009, Baxter flu vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. Vaccines have been contaminated with HIV. The list goes on. Often times when the contamination is found, the vaccines are shipped to third world countries and administered there. No lawsuits. No liability.

Mainstream Media Vaccination Scandals

Drug companies, time and time again, commit atrocities. We rarely hear about them because drug companies to a large extent control our mainstream media, but we do have a few videos from mainstream media that cover vaccine industry corruption.

The first video is a news story about how Bayer and the U.S. Government knowingly gave HIV tainted vaccinations to children. This is no surprise to us, except that the mainstream media actually covered it!

We force immigrants to get needless vaccinations thanks to Merck’s lobbying.

This video talks about how the swine flu pandemic never was an actual pandemic.

For every story that the mainstream media exposes, imagine how many are covered up.

Flu Shot Ingredients

For some time it seemed many people thought mercury was removed from all vaccines. Not true. Thimersosal is mercury and it is still a major ingredient in many vaccinations. After years of denying the connection between mercury and autism, routinely used children’s vaccines (except for flu shots) in the United States no longer contain thimerosal.

The rest of the ingredients don’t look so good either. You don’t have to be a scientist to understand that formaldehyde, aluminum, and mercury are very toxic to us. Ammonium sulfate can be found in the DTaP, DPT, HiB vaccines, all of which are routinely given to babies. Ammonium (basically positively charged ammonia), monosodium glutamate, potassium monophosphate, diphosphate, and phenoxyethanol (antifreeze) are other common and toxic ingredients found in vaccines, including children’s shots. If one were to suggest ingesting the same quantity of these ingredients found in a single vaccine, in any other way other than a vaccine, virtually every single doctor in the country would tell you that this could be extremely hazardous to your health. But put it in a vaccine, and inject it directly your blood stream, and suddenly these preservatives become inconsequential.

Vegan Issues

Flu and measles shots contain chick embryo and embryonic fluid. Vaccines cultured in human diploid cells that come from aborted human fetal tissue include Hepatitis A, RotaTeq, Varicella (chickenpox), Rubella, and Mump inoculations. Flu and mump shots are made in chicken eggs. Monkey kidney cells are used to create Polio vaccines. Other ingredients from animal byproducts include gelatin serums and guinea pig embryo cells.

Questions to Ask Yourself

If vaccines immunize, why must we keep taking them?

If vaccines are safe, why are laws being passed to protect the drug companies from any liability?

Do you trust these companies with your life and the lives of your children?

Do drug companies that create vaccines have any financial incentive to make the population healthy?

The Bottom Line

Vaccines are killing and damaging people. The drug companies do not care about our health. In fact, it behooves them not to heal us. This has been proven so many times, over and over again with scandal after scandal. It’s all about profit.

Even if the efficacy of vaccinations could be proven throughout history, we cannot recommend anyone inject something directly into their bloodstream that is sourced from corporations that have proven time and time again that they do not care about our health and wellbeing.

Further Reading:

• How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children
• How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children
• Doctors Against Vaccines – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research
• Nurses Against Vaccines
• Influenza Vaccine – A Comprehensive Overview of the Potential Dangers and Effectiveness of the Flu Shot
• The MMR Vaccine – A Comprehensive Overview Of the Potential Dangers and Effectiveness
• How Plumbing, Not Vaccines, Eradicated Disease
• Autism and Vaccines: CDC Whistleblower Exposes Vaccine Dangers, Lies, and Cover-ups

Sources:

1. Vaccination Schedule
2. Statistics by Country for Autism
3. Mass Immunization, A Point in Question, by Trevor Gunn (citing E.D. Hume, Pasteur Exposed-The False Foundations of Modern Medicine, Bookreal, Australia, 1989.)
4. U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says
5. Physician William Howard Hay’s address of June 25, 1937; printed in the Congressional Record
6. Eleanor McBean, The Poisoned Needle, Health Research, 1956.
7. Outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis in Oman; evidence for widespread transmission among fully vaccinated children. Lancet vol 338: Sept 21, 1991; 715-720.
8. Neil Miller, Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective? pg. 33
9. Chicago Dept. of Health
10. Dispelling Vaccination Myths
11. US Infant Mortality Rate Higher Than Other Wealthy Countries
12. Polio Disease – Questions and Answers
13. CNN – Rotarix rotavirus vaccine contaminated
14. Herd Immunity: Flawed Science and Mass Vaccination Failures

A few other articles worth reading:

• ‘Police State’ Registry System Being Set Up to Track Your Vaccination Status
• The Coming Push to Give HPV Vaccines to Infants
• Autism Prevalence Up? 1 In 50 Kids Has ASD, Parents Say

Are GMOs Safe?

While many studies claim no correlation to any health issues with GMO consumption, there are a number of studies that do show frightening correlations including multi-organ damage and reproductive disruption. The serious health risks are becoming harder to dismiss.

How to Avoid GMOs

It’s not easy. It is estimated that 60 to 70 percent of processed food contains a GMO ingredient, according to the Colorado State University Extension.

As for produce, buying organic is one very good way to avoid GMOs. There are times when organic crops have been contaminated, but for the most part, buying organic keeps you free of genetically modified foods. We prefer to purchase most of our food from local farmer’s markets where we can get to know the farmers. Besides growing it yourself, local farmer’s markets are typically the best way to get the freshest, healthiest produce. And buy heirloom produce as much as possible! It’s funny looking, but much healthier and much tastier! Read The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs for more information on heirlooms.

Another way to avoid GMOs is to avoid the foods that are most often genetically modified.

What Foods are Genetically Modified?

The foods most likely to be GMO are corn, soybeans, cotton (for oil), canola (also a source of oil), squash, papaya,  and sugar beets, which are refined into sugar. There’s also GMO alfalfa, but that is used for animal feed, not for sprouts that people eat. That leaves quite a lot of your garden untouched.

GMO versions of tomatoes, potatoes, and rice have been created and approved by government regulators, but they aren’t commercially available.

GM Corn

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 70 percent of corn grown in the United States has been genetically engineered. The two most common genetically modified corns are BT corn and herbicide resistant corn. BT corn is genetically altered to contain the bacterial Bt toxin, an insecticide. Herbicide resistant corn varieties are resistant to glyphosate herbicides, Liberty and Roundup. Now fourteen countries grow herbicide-resistant GM corn.

Corn hybrids have been marketed with tolerance to imidazoline herbicides under the trademark “Clearfield.” Not to be confused with GMOs, the herbicide-tolerance trait was bred into the corn by using a tissue culture selection and the chemical mutagen ethyl methanesulfonate.

For those who eat a conventional, modern diet, GM corn seems to be in everything! It’s prevalent in most processed foods. Look out for the following ingredients which are either made directly from GM corn or are processed using GM corn:

• Artificial Sweeteners (many are derived from corn in one way or another)
• Artificial Flavors
• Ascorbic Acid (most vitamin C is made from GMO corn)
• Caramel Color
• Citrate (Calcium Citrate, Magnesium Citrate, Potassium Citrate, Sodium Citrate)
• Corn Meal
• Corn Oil
• Corn Starch
• Corn Syrup
• Decyl Glucoside (body care products like shampoo)
• Dextrin
• Glucose
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Honey (High fructose corn syrup is often fed to bees to increase production. In addition, honey is often mixed with corn syrup by unscrupulous companies). Lactic Acid (often made using corn fermentation)
• Maltodextrin
• Modified Food Starch
• Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) (often made from corn)
• Natural Flavors
• Sodium
• Vitamin E (Tocopherols)
• Xanthan Gum
• Xylitol

And believe it or not, this is an incomplete list. As you may have figured out, this means breads, cereals, baby foods, baby formulas, sauces (ketchup, BBQ sauce, etc.) veggies burgers, soy cheese, protein powders, supplements, candies, instant dinners, peanut butters, pastas, and even hospital IV’s are likely to contain genetically modified corn. Almost anything packaged! This is one of many reasons to prepare your own food and avoid anything processed.

Even organic corn has been shown to be contaminated by pollination. The farther away non GMO corn is from GMO corn fields, the less likely it will be contaminated, but it seems to be spreading.

GM Soy

The first genetically modified soybeans were planted in the United States in 1996. Now, more than 93% of  soybeans the United States produces are genetically modified, according to the USDA. GM soybeans are planted all over the world. The most commonly used GM soybeans are Roundup Ready soybeans. Soybeans have natural protection against pests. But weeds are a major problem for farmers growing soy. Roundup Ready soybeans possess a gene, agrobacterium sp. strain CP4, a bacteria, that causes the soybean to be herbicide resistance. Now the farmers can spray massive amounts of herbicides onto the crop fields without harming the soybeans.

Fortunately, since soy is well known to cause severe allergic reactions in people (and we suspect that the number of people allergic to soy is on the rise partly due to the GM soy), it’s fairly common for packaged foods to be labeled as having soy, or labeled to show they were processed in facilities that also process soy. But there are lots of food manufactures who do not label soy or that use soy and label it under a different name. Below is a list of both common names for soy and ingredients that are often derived from or contain soy. So watch out for these ingredients:

• Daidzéine
• Edamame
• Estrogène Végétal
• Fermented Soy
• Flavoring (including natural and artificial)
• Génistéine
• Glycine
• High Protein Flour (possibly)*
• Hydrolyzed Plant, Soy or Vegetable Protein*
• Hydrolyzed Soy Protein
• Isoflavens
• Isoflavone
• Isolated Soy Protein
• Isolated Soybean Protein
• Kinnoko Flour
• Kyodofu (freeze dried tofu)
• Lecithin
• Legume
• Many vegetable broths
• Miso
• MSG
• Natto
• Phytoestrogen
• Phytosterol
• Plant Esters
• Plant Estrogen
• Shoyu
• Shoyu sauce
• Soja
• Soya
• Stanol
• Sterol
• Tamari
• Tempeh
• Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP)
• Tofu
• Vitamin E
• Xanthan Gum

GMO soy is found in pastries, infant formulas, supplements, protein powders, cereals, vitamin E, bread, cheese, dough, candy… Once again, pretty much anything and everything processed and packaged as convenient food.

Meat, Dairy, and Eggs

While scientists are beginning to genetically modify animals, the current problem with GMOs from meat comes from the foods we feed our livestock.

Chickens, cows, and pigs (as well as many “free range” livestock) are fed genetically modified corn and soy. You are what you eat (and drink, and are injected with). So conventional meat, eggs, and dairy are essentially made up of GMO corn and soy.

Farmers who want to avoid genetically modified feed can purchase corn and soy feed that is labeled GMO free. But the feed is often contaminated with GMOs. Even organic animal feed is not free from contamination! In 2006, Albert Straus, owner of the Straus Family, wanted to make sure the food he was producing was completely free of genetically modified foods. He made the decision to test the feed he used for his 1,600 cows and found that nearly 6% of the corn feed he used, labeled organic, was contaminated by GMOs (read the Times article, When Organic Isn’t Really Organic).

While dairy shares the same problem as meat and eggs, as it is essentially created in large part from genetically modified animal feed, Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, also known as RBGH, is another problem with conventional milk. This Monsanto hormone artificially forces cows to increase their milk production by 15 percent.  While not a genetic modification, it’s worth mentioning that this is nasty stuff that should be avoided at all costs.

The easiest way to avoid meat contaminated with GMOs is to go vegan or to know the farmer that raised the meat so you can be assured that precautions are taken. Regardless of where one’s ethics are when it comes to eating meat, animals should be allowed to roam freely and eat what nature intended. This produces healthier meat that is generally completely GMO free. But with the spread of genetically modified pollen, it may eventually become harder and harder to insure animals don’t eat GM plants.

GM Beets/Sugar

More than 50% of sugar sold in America comes from sugar beets. Genetically modified, Roundup Ready sugar beets account for more than 90 percent of the crop. This figure is likely to increase since the USDA granted non-regulated status for genetically engineered beets just last year, and the FDA approved them to be to be sold on the market under the name “sugar.”

If the ingredients say “cane sugar,” there should not be GM beet sugar in the food.

GM Papaya

The only currently commercially-produced GM fruit is the Hawaiian papaya. In the late 1980s, the University of Hawaii developed a papaya genetically engineered to be resistant to Papaya Ringspot Virus. They did it by transferring viral genes encoded with capsid proteins into the papaya genome. The capsid proteins cause something similar to an “immune response” from the plant. The genetically modified papaya plants are no longer susceptible to infection, allowing farmers to cultivate the fruit even when the virus is widespread. The GM papaya is often held up by GMO proponents as proof of how genetically engineering food can benefit us.
The first GMO papayas were grown in Hawaii commercially in 1999. Now these Transgenic papayas account for more than three quarters of Hawaiian papaya crops and they are contaminating the organic crops. NW Resistance Against Genetic Engineering reported that independent laboratory testing results showed widespread GM contamination.

Nearly 20,000 papaya seeds from across the Big Island, 80% of which came from organic farms and the rest from backyard gardens or wild trees, showed a contamination level of 50%.”

Fortunately GM papayas can be avoided if you buy  the large Caribbean or Mexican red papayas, which are not genetically modified.

GM Canola/Rapeseed

Accordning to Wikipedia, “A genetically engineered rapeseed that is tolerant to herbicide was first introduced to Canada in 1995. In 2009, 90% of the Canadian crop was herbicide-tolerant. As of 2005, 87% of the canola grown in the US was genetically modified. A 2010 study conducted in North Dakota found glyphosate- or glufosinate-resistance transgenes in 80% of wild natural rapeseed plants, and a few plants that were resistant to both herbicides.”

If it’s not labeled Organic or certified GMO free, canola oil is almost definitely genetically modified.

GM Squash

Summer squash and zucchini were genetically modified to become more resistant to viruses and bacteria. But there was a problem. Cucumber cockroaches love GMO squash. They wound the leaves, leaving open holes in them. The cockroaches’ feces get absorbed into the stem causing bacterial diseases.

Some experts say that genetically modified squash have blended with wild squash species.

Farmers generally do not want to use GMO squash seeds for the aforementioned issues, and most experts say that conventional store bought squashes are very unlikely to be GM squash.

GM Fish

The AquAdvantage salmon has been created by adding a growth hormone regulating gene from a Pacific Chinook salmon and a promoter gene from an ocean pout to the Atlantic salmon’s genes. These genes enable the salmon to grow all year (as opposed to growing only during the spring and summer). The AquAdvantage salmon grows much faster than wild salmon and matures to twice the size of regular salmon. Many environmentalists and scientists are worried that GMO salmon could have negative impact on the environment and mutate over time.

The application for FDA approval requires land-based tank cultivation. There are no sea-based pens under discussion at this time. But if there was ocean contamination, consider the ramifications. The contamination would be impossible to stop once it starts, and the changes to the salmon population, as well as any species that foods on the salmon,, would be irrevocable.

The good news is that as of this writing AquAdvantage salmon has not been approved by the FDA. The bad news is that it is likely to be approved very soon.

Whole Foods and Trader Joes have vowed that they will not sell genetically modified seafood.

It would seem that farm raised seafood would be good for the environment, considering the toxins such as mercury in the seafood and the deviational effects our fishing industry has had on our oceans. But with the way fish are farmed, there are significant environmental and health concerns. From dyes being used in the feed, to much higher levels of toxins in farm raised fish, we cannot recommend consuming any farm raised seafood at this time. For more information on these environmental and health concerns read Top 10 Problems from Food and Water Watch.

Artificial Sweeteners, Preservatives, Artificial Flavors, and Artificial Colors

Many of these additives are derived from genetically modified organisms, as if we need another reason to stay away from them.

GM Cotton

Like corn and soy, cotton has been genetically engineered to handle pesticides. At least half of the cotton grown in the world has been genetically modified to resist pests and pesticides. GM cotton has been blamed for many farming issues in India including soil infertility and a rise in farmer suicides.

Cottonseed oil is used to make vegetable oil and margarine, but cotton itself has gossypol, a toxin that makes it inedible. But scientist have recently been able to silence the gene that produces the toxin, so cotton  may end up being a food crop for more than just oil.

To avoid wearing clothing made from GMO cotton, buy organic cotton clothing or look for a GMO free label.

Wheat

Recently an Oregon farmer sprayed a patch of wheat with Roundup. Some of the wheat survived. The farmer then sent samples to be analyzed by a laboratory. The wheat was a genetically engineered Monsanto Roundup Ready wheat that had never been approved anywhere in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/WSrcq912DOI

But there are many other reasons to avoid wheat. Artificial selection over many years has changed the proteins in wheat, which is causing massive health issues. Check out 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Gluten for more information.

GM Potatoes

There are no transgenic potatoes marketed for human consumption at this time. That may soon change. BASF requested cultivation and marketing approval in 2011 for its Fortuna potato, genetically modified to be resistant to late blight.

Many consumers concerned about GMO foods believe that conventional potatoes will not sprout because they are genetically modified. But this is not the case.

Potatoes are treated with fungicides while they grow, then they are sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines for easier harvesting. Finally, after the potatoes are extracted from the ground they are treated on order to prevent them from sprouting. It’s been said that many farmers have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without the chemicals.

UPDATE (5/1/2015): Genetically Modified Potatoes are not on the market. Avoid any potatoes that are not organic for the GMO issue and other reasons.

GM Tomatoes

In 1994, the transgenic Flavr Savr tomato was approved by the FDA for marketing in the U.S. The modification allowed the tomato to delay ripening after picking. But these GM tomatoes have disappeared. Transgenic tomato (FlavrSavr) had a “deactivated” gene (Antisense approach). This meant that the tomato plant was no longer able to produce polygalacturonase, an enzyme involved in fruit softening. The premise was that tomatoes could be left to ripen on the vine and still have a long shelf life, thus allowing them to develop their full flavor. These GM tomatoes, however, did not meet  expectations. Although they were approved in the US and several other countries, tomatoes with delayed ripening have disappeared from the market after peaking in 1998. At this point, no genetically modified tomatoes are being grown commercially in North America or in Europe.

The nearly perfectly round and bright red tomatoes you see in the grocery stores, lacking in flavor and nutrition, are hybrids. For more information, check out The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs.

GM Peas

Australian scientists genetically modified peas with genes from kidney beans, creating a protein that functions as a pesticide. Studies have shown strong evidence that these genetically modified peas may create significant health issues including immune system disruption. The good news is that these genetically modified peas are not approved for human consumption and are not available.

GM Rice

Currently, there is no large scale production of genetically modified rice. Bayer has developed a strain of rice they call LL62 with increased tolerance to glufosinate-containing herbicides. This genetically modified rice has been approved in the United States, but farmers are not yet using it.

There is a wide variety of genetically modified rice not yet approved in any country. GM research for rice includes making rice resistant to herbicides, diseases, and pests; increasing nutritional value; eliminating rice allergies; producing human blood protein; increasing yield; improving tolerance to drought and salinity; and enhancing nitrogen use efficiency.

GM Yeast

Genetically modified yeast is approved in the United States for making wine.

In the United Kingdom genetically modified yeasts were approved a few years ago. The yeasts are a bakers’ yeast that displays a shorter rising time and a brewers’ yeast that is used in diet beer. Neither of the GM yeasts are used commercially on a large scale at this time.

Bananas

Despite what you read online in many uninformed websites, bananas are not genetically modified. The bananas we eat are a result of selective breeding. Wild bananas have a large, woody seed in the middle of the fruit. They also have much less edible fruit.

GM Alfalfa

In January of 2007 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that he would authorize the unrestricted commercial cultivation of genetically modified alfalfa developed by Monsanto and Forage Genetics.

Experts who are not in the pockets of Monsanto agree that massive GM contamination of alfalfa, more so than any other GM crop, is only a matter of time.

GMO alfalfas are treated with Monsanto’s Roundup ready that have been related to many health problems and crop failures, including a mysterious unknown organism discovered last summer in Midwestern fields that is connected to seemingly healthy fields are suddenly littered with yellowed leaves and dead plants (check out More Details on the Strange Organism That Could Destroy Monsanto).

From my research, alfalfa is the most freighting GMO on the market (though I would pick salmon if it were on the market today). It’s a shame. Alfalfa is an amazing plant with awesome health benefits (Read more about alfalfa and its health benefits).

GM Contaminated Honey

Canadian honey was banned by Europe after it was found that the honeybees in Canada were feeding off of genetically modified canola.

Bees are often fed high fructose corn syrup to increase their honey production. In addition, testing has shown that conventional honey imported into the U.S. is sometimes mixed with high fructose corn syrup and is usually processed to filter out the pollen or heated, which destroys its nutrients.

Only use organic raw honey, and do not cook with it (it destroys the health benefits).

Other Ways to Avoid GM Foods

A common myth is that you can tell which produce is genetically modified by its bar code. Five-digit numbers that start with a “9″ signify that the product is organic, while a five-digit number starting with “8″ implies that it is a GMO. The problem is that there are no labeling requirements for GM foods. And since consumers have shown that they don’t particularly want GMOs in their diets, the companies don’t want to label as such.

But there will be a way we can tell which foods are GMO and which are not regardless of whether or not we get labeling laws passed.

A handheld device that detects pesticides, heavy metals, and genetic modifications will soon be available. We are very excited about this and cannot wait for it to hit the market!

In the not too distant future, consumers will be able to run on-the-spot tests for environmental toxins, GMOs, pesticides, food safety, and more with their smartphones and other hand-held devices.”

Check this article for more information

In closing…

There is a lot of misinformation about GMOs. I’ve tried to dispel some of it, but there are a few other issues that should be addressed that don’t fit into the scope of this article. Please do take the time to check out Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted, an NPR article by Dan Charles.

We need to label genetically modified foods. Personally, I feel that organic foods should be our staple. Organic food is real food. It should be the food that doesn’t require labeling, while everything else should. But then again, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t even have GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, etc.

The truth is, if we take time to cultivate nutrient dense soil and look at growing food from a long term perspective, toxic chemicals aren’t needed at all. And we would all be healthier for it. But with the way things are now, we can’t rely on big business to do this. Organic standards are consistently dwindling. And whether or not GMO foods get labeled, we need to take back our health, stand up to big agriculture business, and start growing our own food and supporting small local farmers we know and trust. Marching on the streets against Monsanto is great. It needs to happen. But money talks. Vote with your wallets. And spread the word. I do believe that we are on the cusp of some radical changes with our food system. I’m just not yet sure which way the change is happening.

Recommended Supplements (These supplements help detoxify GMOs):

• Shillington’s Total Nutrition Formula
• FloraMend Prime Probiotic – Thorne Research
• Fundamental Sulfur Powder (MSM Powder) – Douglas Labs
• Shillington’s Intestinal Cleanse Formula
• Shillington’s Intestinal Detox

Further Reading:

• How to Avoid GMOs
  
• The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs
• The Unspoken Link Between GM-Foods and Cancer
• GMO-Bananas are Going Into Human Trials

Sowing Seeds in the Supreme Court

Monsanto , the company we just cannot seem to stop talking about, finds itself inside a courtroom once again. This time, the case has made it to the Supreme Court.

Vernon Bowman, a 75-year-old soybean farmer from Indiana, faces the agriculture giant. Bowman is not an activist opposed to Monsanto’s genetically modified crops; he buys and plants Monsanto soybean seeds.

Monsanto’s RoundUp ready, genetically modified soybeans are patented. Farmers are not allowed to retain and plant the seeds generated from each new crop. By contract, they agree to purchase new seed each year. Bowman diligently purchased annual seeds. But late-season soybean crops are a risk. When Bowman decided to plant a late season crop, he bought cheaper “Outbound Grain” from a local soybean grain elevator. He knew Monsanto genetically modified seeds were popular among his neighboring farmers. As suspected, most of the seed came from Monsanto crops.

This is what got Bowman into trouble.

Monsanto sued for patent infringement. By replanting the seed, Bowman made illegal copies of the plants and was ordered to pay $84,000 in royalties.

The case is cause for consideration on seed and plant patent law in general, no doubt. But at its core, it is a remarkable reflection of where agriculture is today and where it is going. Should someone have legal rights over a product of life?

Before modern farming practices, seeds were considered public domain. They were saved, exchanged, replanted. Plants were modified through breeding and selection. Diversity was essential for crop survival. Farmers developed assorted varieties that were able to thrive in all types of environments.

This all changed in the 1980’s, when companies were given the legal right to patent and own products of life. The problem with patenting this product of life is that it is the seed’s nature to reproduce. The legitimacy for a company to have rights over a naturally self-replicating entity should raise concern.

The Supreme Court, after hearing arguments from the farmer and the corporation, will have the task of untangling the web of complex patent law. The court’s decision on whether a natural life product can be legally owned could have resounding effects throughout the agricultural, pharmaceutical, and medical industries.

Also check out Monsanto Company Profile.

Chemicals and Other Contaminants You Really Shouldn’t Be Drinking

If you’re like most people, you use tap water for cooking, cleaning, bathing, and drinking. Also like a lot of people, you may not have given a thought to what could be in that water—things like chemicals, microorganisms, and bacteria. If you’re concerned about your health, you should consider purchasing and installing a home water filtration system to ensure that the water you and your family members use is safe and clean.

Contaminants in Drinking Water

Recently, the Environmental Working Group analyzed almost 20 million drinking water tests that had been done by U.S. water suppliers between 2004 and 2009. The results showed that there were hundreds of different pollutants in American drinking water. Most of those contaminants have no safety levels set by the government; others exist at levels higher than recommended by health guidelines.

These contaminants may come from chemicals added by water utilities for treating the water, from industrial or agricultural contamination of water supplies, from chemicals leached from water pipes and tanks, or from wastewater treatment plants.

Chemicals Intentionally Added

Just a few of the chemicals intentionally added to drinking water include , supposedly for oral health, but the World Health Organization  does not advocate the addition of this toxic substance to water supplies where people have a good health structure. In fact, the World Health Organization recommends the removal of fluoride from drinking water in first-world countries. Fluoride consumption is linked to certain cancers, lowered IQ, and diminished thyroid levels.

Other chemicals that may be intentionally added to drinking water during the water treatment process are potassium permanganate, aluminum sulphate, hydrated lime, chlorine, and polyphosphate. Some of these chemicals are added to disinfect the water. Some are added for other purposes.

Unintentional Contaminants in Drinking Water

In addition to industrial pollution, common sources of unintentionally-added contaminants to drinking water are agriculture, factory farming, and the water treatment (disinfection) process itself.

Nitrates from fertilizer can infiltrate groundwater and run off into rivers and streams, contaminating water supplies. Nitrates are particularly dangerous to infants and children. Other agricultural contaminants include perchlorate, bromochloroacetic acid, MTBE, and Di-n-butylphthalate.

Trihalomethanes, bromate, haloacetic acides, and chlorite are among more than 600 by-products of the disinfection process. Most of these by-products are not restricted, nor do water treatment plants test for them.

Yet another group of contaminants in our drinking water are microorganisms. These may come from factory farm run-offs and sewage treatment plants. Some include Cryptosporidium, Giardi lamblia, Legionella, E. Coli, and a variety of viruses.

For every contaminant we test for, there are thousands we don’t. We don’t know the dangers of these chemicals in our drinking water, and no attempts are made to remove or prevent the contamination.

Types of Home Water Filtration Systems

One of the best ways to protect yourself against these contaminants is to install a home water purification system. There are several different levels of filtration that you can use. It depends on how many of those contaminants you want to remove and how much money you want to spend.

If you have a limited budget, a carbon filter system (pitcher, faucet-mount, or large dispenser) will remove chlorine, mercury, lead, asbestos, and VOCs. It will not remove fluoride, nitrate, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, or perchlorate. Some carbon filters are better than others.

The very best (and most expensive) way to remove the most contaminants from your water supply is to install a reverse osmosis (RO) system combined with a top-level carbon filter. Reverse osmosis uses a semi-permeable membrane that holds all particles larger than water molecules. This type of system will filter out perchlorate, hexavalent chromium, fluoride, arsenic, and nitrates. These types of filters are used for drinking and cooking water only.

To kill off bacteria and microorganisms, an ultraviolet light system works the best. These filters do not remove chemicals, but you can install a UV system to your reverse osmosis and carbon filtration system.

If only everyone would watch this film

Why are we as people and as a nation in so much debt? Why do our corporations continue to enslave us and brainwash us? Why are we always at war? Why do corporations control our government? Why are our medical system, food system, and educational system so corrupt? Why do we incarcerate so many people? Why is our nation failing financially? And what could we do to fix all of this?

This video explains it very well. If only everyone would watch it.

Grocery Shopping Makes Me Angry

I used to love to shop—especially at the farmers market. All those rows of beautiful, colorful, fruit and veggies. You could find anything—everything! It was paradise. But the last few times I went shopping, I didn’t enjoy the experience at all.

It wasn’t the long lines and the swarms of people; I avoid shopping on the weekends and during the “rush hour.” What makes me angry is the limited supply of organic produce and the outrageous prices.

One of the farmer’s markets I frequent shelves all of its organic produce along one short wall.  I’d estimate 23 linear feet of refrigeration and shelving. Turn around and you will see at least ten times as much conventional produce, at much lower prices. This particular market caters to the local Asian and Hispanic population, selling exotic greens and rare fruits, along with the staples we all use. I want to try cactus and funny looking eggplant, dragon fruit and star fruit, but none of these choices are organic.

In the farmer’s market where I do the bulk of my shopping, there was an entire row of peppers and an entire row of cucumbers, and not one of them was organic. And nearly every organic item was priced at twice the price per pound. If the conventional item was 99 cent a pound, the organic equivalent’s sticker read 1.99 per pound. There are exceptions of course. Organic watermelon was four times the price of conventional.

Why do we pay more to avoid being poisoned by our food?

Why Is Organic Food More Expensive?

Certified organic food is more expensive for several reasons. First and foremost good old supply and demand. Normally when we hear those magic words we think that the price was merely jacked up as high as the market will bear. But the truth is, when you only look at the short term costs, organic farming does cost more—at least in upfront labor costs, post harvest handling, marketing, and distribution.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, this is true around the world. They state:

• “Post-harvest handling of relatively small quantities of organic foods results in higher costs because of the mandatory segregation of organic and conventional produce, especially for processing and transportation;
• Marketing and the distribution chain for organic products is relatively inefficient and costs are higher because of relatively small volumes.”

Organic certification also adds considerable cost to the small farmer, both in fees and labor.

When we buy organic meats and dairy, we know the animals’ care and treatment was considerably better than that of animals raised in factory farms. The conventional big business practice is to leave these pitiful animals standing in filth, crowded in bins. They are fed low- cost GMO laden feed and shot full of antibiotics and hormones to keep them alive until they can be butchered.  Yes, of course, this inhumane treatment is less expensive than raising free range, organic fed, healthy animals. It is illegal to abuse a pet, yet when it comes to raising cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and turkeys, we allow horrific, unspeakable animal cruelty to be the accepted norm.

Farming is much the same. In the short term it is cheaper to grow huge fields of one crop, to dump chemicals into the earth and spray with pesticides, to strip the land, than it is to rotate crops, replenish the soil naturally, and grow healthy pest resistant and disease resistant plants.  Instead, over time more and more chemicals are used to yield the same crops. But our fertile earth is dying, stripped of minerals and the healthy bacteria that ensures nutrient rich food.

The Cost of Conventional Agriculture

Although the current costs of conventional food are low, the true cost is so much higher.  It’s not just the little known fact that conventional farming is highly subsidized by the government, while organic farming is not. The true cost of today’s cheap conventional food does not reflect destruction of our farmlands, the health of the farm workers exposed to pesticides, or the effect on the health of every man, woman, and child eating foods with substandard nutrients contaminated with pesticides and herbicides, not to mention the genetically modified atrocities that disrupt fertility and damage our organs.

How Do We Make Organic Food Less Expensive?

Once again quoting the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:  “As demand for organic food and products is increasing, technological innovations and economies of scale should reduce costs of production, processing, distribution and marketing for organic produce.”

So let’s keep up the demand. But we can do more.

Once, several years ago, I was visiting a friend in Kansas City, Missouri. She took me to her favorite grocery store, Wild Oats. It was a medium sized store, the size of a regular grocery store back in the day before we super sized everything. Although all the prices seemed reasonable, there were no signs telling me which produce was organic. My friend laughed. All of the produce and meat sold in Wild Oats was organic. And not one of the foods on their shelves contained MSG, hydrogenated oils, or other known harmful additives. Can you imagine what a joy it would be to shop if every grocery store sold nothing but organic, healthy food?

We have the power to take this country back from big business, to protect our most valuable resources—our land, our seed banks, our future. Write to your senators and congressmen. Call for a ban on factory farming, conventional farming, and GMO foods. Tell them organic farmers should be subsidized, not giant corporations that are raping the land. Push for laws to protect and support family farms including a waiver of inheritance taxes. And above all, stop purchasing hormone laden, antibiotic laden milk and meat. Buy organic meat, dairy and produce, even though it is more expensive. Most importantly, grow your own organic food! We have the power to render these poisoned foods obsolete by refusing to purchase them.

Act Now! (satire)

In light of President Obama’s continued efforts to clean up our environment by pushing for clean coal and nuclear power, signing the extension of the Patriot Act, and his inspiring warlord like acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, we at Organic Lifestyle Magazine have decided to release this limited edition commemorative presidential coin featuring our president Barack Obama on one side and our former president George W. Bush on the other.

In Greed we trust.

As Obama continues to disappoint liberals and conservatives alike with broken promises and general short comings this minted official fake coin is bound to increase in value.

For only $49.95 you can have this official “Two Sides of the Same Coin” presidential memorabilia. If you order now we’ll pay shipping and handeling!

Disclaimer: This coin is not real. Half of all proceeds from people who send us money to purchase this coin will be donated to the Tea Party. The other half will be donated to the Green Party.

Disclaimer 2: We would never ever donate money to the Tea Party, ever!

Disclaimer 3: We will not be donating any money to anyone. We tree huggers will keep it to ourselves.