I find it both humorous and sad when people cite studies that allow them to justify their toxic lifestyles. Do you really need a study to tell you smoking is bad for you? Back in the 1950s and 1960s we did. It seems silly now that people didn’t realize inhaling smoke is unhealthy. Now we need studies to tell us whether or not an obscene number of vaccinations containing mercury, aluminum, antifreeze, and/or other toxins are dangerous. Apparently, many people need studies to prove eating organic is healthier. Where’s their common sense? Food laced with poison versus food without poison. Which is healthier?

People love to quote studies that claim coffee is a strong antioxidant so they can justify their coffee habits. If I developed cocaine that had vitamin D, zinc, and vitamin C, would you snort a few lines to combat the common cold? I have studies that will show you how important those three nutrients are for fighting a virus, so, what’s the problem?

We’re out of touch and not at all in tune with our bodies. Diseases that are said to be genetic are on the rise, spiraling out of control, increasing much more rapidly than population growth, and yet we need studies to tell us what we can and can’t do. But when we read about a study that tells us to stop doing whatever we consider convenient or normal, we’re quick to find flaws in it and we do everything we can to debunk it. Meanwhile some major corporation secretly funds a bogus study, gets all the peer reviews it wants, and we then use that study to show why we don’t need to change our habits.

The problem with studies is that they too often look for one correlation. It’s not solely vaccinations that are causing autism. It’s not only cell phones that are causing cancer. It’s not just high fructose corn syrup that’s causing diabetes. You can’t point a finger at any one thing. It’s the whole package, the blatant disregard for common sense in the name of profit and convenience.

If you accept the fact that our lifestyles are leading us down a road of poor health and medications, then the next step is to do something about it. This is where most people can get pretty overwhelmed.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: eat 80% fresh raw fruits and vegetables (more veggies than fruit). That’s step one. That’s your foundation. See how much better you feel. Keep learning. Keep an open mind. You decide what’s step two. You don’t need a study to tell you that this is a good move.

Michael Edwards

Editor in Chief

Headaches

I’ve recently started getting headaches whenever I get stressed out. Yoga takes care of them, but when I’m at work, I can’t really do that. The headaches aren’t too serious; I can still get through my day, but they sure do slow me down. Any advice would be appreciated!

~Melissa

RYAN HARRISON: First off, good work in pinpointing the cause of your headaches! Now that you know that’s how your body responds to stress, you can take steps to counter that response. Chances are the headaches in question are caused by tension in the neck and shoulders, which is one of the most common physical expressions of stress. Here are several things you can try:

1. Take a few minutes whenever you start to feel stressed to stand up or sit back from your work space. Swing your head gently from side to side a few times (think of a pendulum). Then slowly roll your shoulders in a backward circle five times, then forward five times. Carefully bend your head to the right as if trying to touch your shoulder with your ear – without raising your shoulder in response – and hold it to the count of 10. Repeat this stretch to the left. Shrug your shoulders, holding the shrug for a few seconds, and release. (Of course, you probably do know some yoga stretches you can do for your neck and shoulders that wouldn’t look too strange in the workplace. Who knows, you just might start a trend with your colleagues and improve everyone’s health!)

2. Keep a bottle of stress-relieving supplements with you, and take the recommended dosage at the first hint of tension from stress. Kava kava, skullcap, and lavender can all relieve tension without the negative health effects of OTC painkillers and anti-inflammatories. But be prudent and careful – many relaxant herbs (including those above) can also cause drowsiness. Experiment with them at home over the weekend if you suspect they might make you sleepy enough to impair your work and/or driving.

3. If you have isolated the stress to a particular situation, person, or other specific cause, you can greatly reduce your emotional response to the stressor by utilizing an energy psychology technique such as MTT or EFT (Meridian Tapping Techniques and Emotional Freedom Techniques, respectively). Disarming the energetic signature of the stressor may completely alleviate your physical response, ending your headaches.

Enlarged Prostate

My boyfriend recently found out he has an enlarged prostate. He thinks it’s from too much sex. He and I have sex at least once and up to three times a day, and he also tends to masturbate once a day as well. Is this much sex bad for his health? Is it bad for a woman’s health?

~ Anonymous

RYAN HARRISON: Most people hold it as a self-evident truth that one cannot have too much sex. And, as far as the relationship between sex and a man’s potential for prostate enlargement is concerned, the jury is still out. I’d wager, however, that just as the prostate is a part of a man’s reproductive system, there may be a connection between overworking the gland and related health  complications. How much sex, or rather, how many ejaculate-producing orgasms (since these are not always synonymous!) is normal? Who’s to say? All the same, here is my two cents’ worth:

An enlarged prostate is also called “benign prostatic hyperplasia,” or BPH, for short. It’s a health complication that is very common in men as they age, and is directly connected to age-related hormonal changes and to the two growth periods that a man’s prostate goes through. During the second period – commencing around the age 25 – changes in the way the prostate tissue is growing can cause the telltale symptoms (which don’t typically emerge until the mid-40s): weak or interrupted stream while urinating, feeling an urgency to urinate that produces only a dribble, leakage, and more frequent urination (especially at night).

Assuming that your boyfriend is seeing a physician for this health complaint, I’d listen carefully to what the doctor has to say. BPH can signal some serious health concerns that you’d both certainly want to be aware of. Beyond this, there are some additional things worth trying.

First and foremost, try reducing the amount of ejaculate-producing orgasms that he has. You can do this incrementally in steps, if sexual activities have developed into
something akin to an addiction. Try going from sex and/or masturbation several times a day to once a day. Then go from once a day to once every other day. It might be one of the hardest suggestions to try (who really wants to experience fewer orgasms?), but give this a month or two and revisit the physician to see if the condition has changed at all.

Try a few supplements. Zinc is certainly the first on my list, because a good deal of zinc – which is an essential mineral for health (meaning you can actually die without it) – is excreted with each ejaculation. I have counseled other men in the past to take a zinc supplement if they are very sexually active – even if masturbation is the primary activity – and that certainly goes for your partner.

One study suggests that omega-3s fromevening primrose oil have resulted in significant improvement for many men with BPH. Get him to try 1-2 tsp. a day of evening primrose oil or other botanical omega-3 oil sources such as sunflower, linseed, or walnut oils.

And in Germany, the herbal extract saw palmetto is given out just as often as other medications for BPH. It has been shown to shrink enlarged prostates and clear up symptoms in at least a dozen studies. Find a good quality supplement and follow its dosage recommendations. Increase this herb’s efficacy by adding someorganic pumpkin seeds to your man’s diet, as well. Among other things, they’re an excellent source of zinc: 8 mg per half cup serving!

As for you and your health…is “too much sex” bad for you? That really depends on how your body handles the expenditure of energy, hormones, fluids, etc., and whether you are developing any symptoms. If you are experiencing any symptoms of ill health that you think may be related to the frequency of your sexual activity, try reducing the activity and see what happens.

Email your questions to questions [at] organicmail.net. Questions may be edited for clarity or length.

You may be thinking that OLM is “beating a dead horse” with this vaccine issue. But it’s a battle; one that we won’t quit fighting any time soon. I’m going to say something here that is going to piss off a lot of people: If you don’t think the vaccine industry is out of control, you are a brainwashed pawn, or better yet, a guinea pig. Until we have independent studies that are not funded by Big Pharma, that are published in scientific journals not funded by Big Pharma, that are conducted by scientists who do not rely on grants from Big Pharma to finance their university program or their next research project, we will not trust studies that tell us vaccinations are safe. So when you hear about a study that says there is no correlation between vaccines and neurological disorders, remember the swine flu shots given in 1976 and the thousands who contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). In little more than 2 months, 1/3 of the adult population was vaccinated for the swine flu. The following is from a court case resulting from a 1976 swine flu vaccination injury. Doesn’t this sound familiar? “So monumental and effective were the urgings of the government that it resulted in an unprecedented nearly 40 million citizens responding to the call. Both this plaintiff and untold others relied on the government’s assurances that the vaccine was both safe and necessary. A barrage of publicity aimed at overcoming the reluctance of citizens to participate included the unprecedented appearance of the President of the United States on national television to plead for a positive response. Against that background, it would be a travesty to suggest that people who hurriedly signed the standardized form presented to them were adequately informed of the risks.” [VERLIN G. UNTHANK, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT]1 With each report of a death from H1N1, we must remember that the severity of H1N1 is significantly lower than that of seasonal flu. The news does not tell us each time a man, woman, or child dies from complications of seasonal flu, which claims the life of 35,000 Americans each year. Don’t let swine flu hysteria and the media frenzy affect your health decisions regarding vaccination.

Many have blogged about the New Jersey mother who lost her parental rights for refusing a C-section and acting erratically during labor. What is unclear is whether she refused to sign permission for a C-section in the event one was indicated or if she refused when the baby was in distress and doctors wanted to perform one. It may be a moot point, considering the child was born vaginally and without complications, but still there is a clear distinction between signing a cart blanche permission to allow doctors to do whatever they want before the need arises, and refusing care when an unborn child is experiencing fetal distress.

The parents’ rights have now been terminated and the court cites chronic mental illness on both their parts as the reason. (The mother had received mental health care for 12 years prior to the incident.) Many blogs make the point that if the mother had not refused a C-section, her mental health would not have been in question. We don’t necessarily agree.

If this couple was receiving on-going care for chronic mental illness, Child Protective Services likely would have been notified about their case by their mental health worker. But so little is known about the actual facts in this case (and the links to the court ruling are broken on multiple sites), most of what is posted is assumption.

In another case in 2004, a mother was charged with murder for refusing a C-section for her twins. One was stillborn. This mother also had drug and alcohol issues. The case was plea bargained and the murder charge was dropped.

While both of these cases have extenuating circumstances, it is still quite clear that a woman no longer has the right to refuse an invasive procedure without facing parental termination or, in the case of a child’s death, murder charges.

The previous article is one of many appalling stories I’ve read since I’ve been the editor-in-chief of OLM. I used to believe that these stories were rare. Because of my own experience, I now pay more attention. I know horrific cases of injustice are all too common.

The day my daughter was born, I constantly argued with the doctors and nurses. They convinced my wife that she needed antibiotics. They told us several times that she might need a C-section. Once our daughter was born, they also convinced my wife that our baby might die if she did not receive IV antibiotics. They threatened to call child protective services if we didn’t comply. They later admitted the IV antibiotics were given as a precaution. In other words, they lied. Our whole experience was a nightmare. But that’s another story. That’s not what this article is about. This article is about my experience with our justice system.

When my wife and I separated, my daughter was two years old. The separation was a mutual decision, and at first we got along pretty well, but it wasn’t long before our relationship went from good to bad. It would take a book to reveal every important or significant detail of this story, which I am in the process of writing. For now, let me just say that I wrongly lost my parental rights; I am no longer recognized as my daughter’s father, and I am currently on probation for my “crimes.”

My daughter and I were very close. In fact, we were much closer than she and her mom. In the weeks prior to the allegation, she told everyone who would listen, “I want to go live with my daddy.”  My daughter was four years old when, out of nowhere, my ex-wife accused me of child molestation. The court indicted me for rape, incest, aggravated child molestation, and child molestation.

It didn’t matter that I’d passed a polygraph to the contrary with flying colors, or that a psycho-sexual evaluation found that I was not a child molester. Nor did it matter that her hymen was fully intact with no scarring or tearing. In the first of many revelations that convinced me the world had gone mad, my lawyer told me the DA would find a doctor to testify that a child’s hymen can grow back. As crazy as this sounds, my attorney, himself a former DA, said such testimony was common practice. Can you imagine?

My daughter had a persistent rash. My ex-wife called and reminded me to check that rash on my daughter’s last visit. When she was examined 19 days later, she still had the rash—a red area, with one tiny “skin tear” a millimeter in size, halfway between her vagina and anus. When asked by the hospital social worker, “Did Daddy touch you down there?” she said, “Yes.”  She was right. I had touched her “down there.”  I had checked her rash.

A rash of this sort is typical in young children, caused by anything from bubble bath to not wiping well. In her case, rashes were the typical result whenever she ate refined sugar.

From the moment I was charged with this crime, I was ordered not to speak to my child or to my ex-wife. I spent a year in jail awaiting trial. My resources were drained. My family’s resources were quickly exhausted. I was assigned a lawyer. On the day my trial was to start, I was told that even though I had “raped my daughter” I could take a plea and walk out of the courtroom–go home that very day with time served and probation. I refused.

I wanted to go to trial. I argued with my attorney, insisting on a trial, but I was facing a maximum term of life plus 30 years in prison. Finally I was convinced that the risk was just too great, especially since my lawyer’s trial preparation had been minimal, at best. But I refused to lie and say I was guilty. I agreed to take a plea called “Alford v. South Carolina.” Through this plea, I could maintain my innocence. The judge agreed I could take this plea, but only if I agreed to a 6-month prison sentence in addition to time served. He also agreed to include “first offender status,” which means I will not need to register as a sex offender after my probation is completed. The felony will be hidden from most background checks. Unless I want to work a high security job like at an airline or a bank, no one need ever know about my conviction. That is, unless I tell them.

I will tell them.

I have never tried to keep this case a secret. I never intend to.

I’ve been told I was very, very lucky, that the DA didn’t think I was guilty. No one, from the parole officers who reviewed my case while I was in prison to the probation officers assigned to me since my release, can make sense of my initial charges and the resultant deal. “What exactly did you supposedly do here?” my probation officer asked me with a look of bewilderment. They all say I dodged a bullet. They all say I am lucky. But I don’t feel lucky. I lost my child.

My court-mandated therapist knows I’m not a pedophile, but we continue to meet; our sessions are included in the terms of my probation.

The law is on my side for a successful habeas corpus, but I don’t yet have the money to fight a successful court battle. If I raise the money before the deadline, I can show that the arresting police officer, who also interviewed my child, gave false information at the indictment. A habeas corpus could result in one of two things: the right to a new trial or the charges being dropped.

A habeas corpus would put me back at the beginning—as if I had never gone to prison or served any time on probation. I could be re-arrested, to await my day in court, to face a jury—twelve people who will have no idea I’ve already served my time. And then, I could win. Or I could lose.

I am still in a lot of pain. I am willing, but not yet able, to fight back. I may never get the ruling reversed. I may go to trial and win. But even if I were to prove my innocence and successfully sue the county for millions, I’m told there is no legal precedent that will allow me to regain my parental rights. I’m told, “They just don’t do that.” Win or lose, my daughter and I have already lost. This isn’t something either one of us will ever “get over.”

I am braced for the worst outcome. If we don’t conform like the sheep we are meant to be, our government, our society in general, is likely to hurt us. People have a tendency to sit on their high horses and look down on others for being different, for bucking the system. They can take everything away from you. Almost everything.

For now, I fight back in a different way. They took my freedom. They took my child. But they didn’t take my morality. They didn’t take my integrity. They didn’t break me.

I fight back by publishing a magazine the goes against the grain. I fight back by speaking out against what I firmly, in the bottom of my heart, believe are lies and  injustice perpetrated against the American people. I fight against the degradation of our food supply. I fight for our health.

I come across too radical for some, but I know from personal experience that corruption in the name of money, power, ego, and social standing is everywhere—in business, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the agricultural industry, in government. This is why I publish OLM. This is why I work 80 plus hours a week. Right now, this is the only way I can fight back.

You may have heard the government is imposing their idea of health care on us. People may go to jail for refusing health insurance. People may go to jail for refusing vaccinations. People will undoubtedly lose their children for refusing these mandates. For those of you who worry about things like this, you have every reason to fear.

For those of you who have lost a child or children due to non-conformity, I feel your pain. For those of you who started a business selling health food and/or supplements and did everything you could to be in full compliance but were still ruined by the lawless FDA and/or the FTC, I know it happens. For those of you who have been forced to do something you were not comfortable with for fear of legal trouble, I understand completely.

It’s a tough world out there. I have no easy answers. I will tell my story. I will finish my book. I plan to start a non-profit one day to help fight injustice. Regardless, I know I will keep fighting. Even if I end up living under a bridge with nothing left, I will go to my local library and blog on their free computer. For right now, I am doing all I can do.

For those of you who have been a victim of our “justice” system or big business, I say fight back if you can, any way you can, even if it’s just through telling your story.

Clinical trials and scientific studies are held as the gold standard when it comes to health care, so how credible those trials and studies are ends up being a very important question. The truth, as it turns out, might surprise you.

The medical establishment likes to look at their studies as factual, evidence driven, and done with an impartial eye. But the truth is, the results of research studies can have multi-million or multi-billion dollar consequences for drug companies, so they can be about as biased as you can get.

It makes more sense when you understand that the drug companies with many millions or billions at stake are often funding the researchers or funding the universities for which the researchers work. And, of course, if the researchers’ studies produce the “right” results, they are more likely to continue to receive funding. Researchers who don’t get enough grant money from big pharmaceutical companies are likely to lose their university jobs. For some researchers, that can be reason enough to play along.

Playing along can mean a number of things. At its worst, playing along can result in complete fabrication or manipulation of the data and results.

It wasn’t long ago that Hwang Woo-Suk, South Korea’s once highly esteemed researcher, claimed a major breakthrough in stem cell research and his results were also published in a prestigious, peer-reviewed publication. It was later found that he fabricated the data, for which he publicly apologized. While his fraud made headlines around the world, the crime might not be as rare as you think.

In 2008, one in fifty scientists admitted they had fabricated, falsified or “doctored” a research study; that number is generally regarded as low since these researchers have an interest in keeping their frauds a secret. When these same scientists were asked if they knew a colleague who had fabricated the data or results, about one in seven said they knew someone who had done just that.

Questionable research practices fall below outright falsification of data and were found to be even more prevalent. When scientists were asked, about one in three admitting to having used questionable research practices; again, the number skyrocketed when asked if they knew a colleague who had. About seven out of every ten scientists said they knew a colleague who had used questionable research practices.

Questionable research includes practices like “changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressures from a funding source” or cherry-picking the results for publication. To the FDA, the latter is even acceptable.

In fact, by FDA rules, pharmaceutical companies can conduct as many clinical trials as they want, and send only the favorable results to the FDA for review. To help you read between the lines, this means drug companies can bury the negative results of clinical drug trials so that you and your doctor Clinical Trials never know about them.

Eli Lilly was accused of hiding the risk of suicide and suicidal tendencies with their drug Prozac, a drug now accepted to increase suicidal risk. A Harvard psychiatrist alleged that during the clinical trials those with suicidal tendencies were asked to leave the study, so their results were not counted. The Harvard psychiatrist was able to produce Eli Lilly internal documents to support the accusation.

Internal documents also surfaced to support the accusation that Eli Lilly knowingly hid the risks of their drug Zyprexa. A former FDA official even testified in court that the drug giant hid the risks for the purpose of insuring profits.

Questionable research practices can also include tweaking the results to make them seem more definite than they originally were, ignoring conclusions that don’t meet the study’s needs, and concealing conflicts of interest.

Depending on whose numbers you trust, incidences of scientific fraud in the U.S., as counted by government confirmed cases, occur with one out of ten scientists at the high end, or at the low end, with one out of every hundred scientists. Either way, they’re high numbers, especially when you consider that millions of people trust this information then put unnatural chemicals inside their bodies.

Properly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs have been found to kill 100,000 Americans and “seriously injure” another 2.1 million each year, and one has to wonder how much pharmaceutical and scientific manipulation and outright fraud is responsible.

To add to the dog pile, drug companies have been found to stoop to all sorts of tricks.

Merck was caught disguising in-house authors as independent researchers. To accomplish this, Merck wrote a key study used to popularize the now infamous Vioxx then paid a researcher to put his/her name on it.

In relation to Vioxx, the Wall Street Journal reported that “a prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies that claimed to show benefits from painkillers like Vioxx and Celebrex.” The studies were published in anesthesiology journals between 1996 and 2008.

Another tactic of the drug companies is to intimidate the scientists. Drug companies have been known to pressure researchers, even scientists at the federal agency that is supposed to regulate them.
Drug Overdose Pressure at the FDA to bow to the interests of their financiers, the drug companies, has gotten so out of hand that scientists at the agency recently wrote Congress and then president-elect Obama about the problems. They talked about being forced to “change their opinions and conclusions,” which is a pretty weighty accusation.

The medical world’s insistence that their drugs are both effective and safe, based on their “unbiased, evident-based” research and clinical trials, no longer sounds so reassuring, does it? Profit-driven would be a more accurate description.

Sources:

• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_disgraced_scientist – Page no Longer Available
• http://healthinmotion.wordpress.com/category/drugs-medical/
• http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7076/full/439520a.html
• http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=19478950
• http://www.naturalnews.com/001810_antidepressant_drugs_the_FDA_antidepressants.html
• http://www.petitiononline.com/lilpro/
• http://www.naturalnews.com/003201_Prozac_Eli_Lilly_suicide.html
• http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/01417/zyprexa-attempt-suicide.html
• http://www.naturalnews.com/024089_Eli_Lilly_Zyprexa_diabetes.html
• http://www.naturalnews.com/021352_Zyprexa_Eli_Lilly_diabetes.html
• http://www.pathlights.com/nr_encyclopedia/hn041598.htm
• http://www.naturalnews.com/023052_Merck_scientific_fraud_America.html
• http://www.naturalnews.com/023074_the_FDA_drug_trials_drugs.html
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672510903888207.html
• http://www.naturalnews.com/019717_the_FDA_America_censorship.html
• http://absolutelysafe.blogspot.com/2009/06/fd.html

In case you haven’t noticed, or this is the first OLM article you’ve read this month, this issue is primarily about studies. Many people rely on studies to tell them what they should and shouldn’t eat, drink, smoke, and purchase. People aren’t in tune with their bodies. People aren’t listening. They seem to have lost their common sense.

Do you need a study to tell you that it’s not good for you to drink a whole bottle of wine? Hopefully not. What about one glass? If you truly listen to your body, you’ll know if and how much that glass affected you. The signs are usually subtle, but they are there. We’ve spent so long ignoring our bodies that we are dependent on “experts” to tell us what we should already know—just by paying attention.

The following pages take a look at the studies involving milk, chocolate, red wine, and coffee, four foods the media now tells us are health foods. We, at OLM, do not consider them to be healthy, though our editor-in-chief admits he’s a “chocoholic,” and he also enjoys a glass of red wine every now and then.

The proceeding articles were not written to “convince” you to give up chocolate, milk, alcohol, or coffee. That’s up to you. We’re just looking at the so-called “expert studies” in a discerning manner and stating our opinions. Your opinion is your own, but we hope you will see the fallacy in relying on “experts” and their studies to tell you how to live.